In such a large geographical area we find a great deal of diversity of experience and history. Life on the Pennines or the North York Moors has always been very different from life in low-lying agricultural districts such as Holderness or the Humberhead Levels. In many ways, the farmers of the Vale of York have had more in common with those the Midland Plain than with the miners, steel workers and textile workers of their own county. Until relatively recently people felt that they belonged to their own parish and to a wider neighbourhood which was bounded by the nearest market towns and which they called their 'country'. Relatively few people travelled to other parts of Yorkshire or had any contact with the 'strangers' who lived beyond their own district. Although the Elizabethan and Stuart gentry were conscious of belonging to Yorkshire, and outsiders made comments (usually adverse) on Yorkshiremen as a breed apart, ordinary folk did not have this sense of belonging to Yorkshire until quite late in its history. The success of the Yorkshire County Cricket Club from the 1890s onwards seems to have been the great stimulus that united Yorkshire people, and which gave them a sense of their superiority. The history of Yorkshire is more varied than that of any other English county. The changing fortunes of the many different regions of the county - from Pennine moors and valley towns to the flats of Holderness; from industrialised cities to quiet market towns - are a major theme in this important new book. Outsiders may recognise a Yorkshire accent, but local people can place a speaker much more precisely in a particular 'country'. It is this diversity of experience within the historic county of Yorkshire that David Hey seeks to capture in this important and fascinating new book.