Worcestershire is a county of wide, fertile valleys, drained by the Severn and Avon, the Teme and the Stour and ringed by some of England's best-known hills, including the Malverns and the Cotswolds. This concise but comprehensive account is based on a wealth of published and unpublished research. It is both highly readable and well illustrated, and will be of interest both to the general reader and to students and local groups seeking to put their own work within a wider perspective. Particular attention is given to the settlement of the county, especially to its colonisation by the Hwicce in the 6th and 7th centuries. There are fascinating insights into the lives of ordinary people through the ages, based on records such as medieval monastic estate records and later probate inventories. Throughout, local happenings are related to national trends, and dramatic events such as the Battle of Evesham of 1265 and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 are highlighted. The contrasts between rural and urban areas are explored, and products such as the carpets of Kidderminster, the salt of Droitwich and the glass of Stourbridge are seen within a wider economic context. There is much here also about individuals, some of whom, such as Edward Elgar and the poet Piers Plowman, are already well known, but others emerge from local records for the first time. The book comes right up to the 1990s, and the triumphs of Worcestershire County Cricket Club and the day-to-day concerns of the Archers are included in the final chapter.