by James Fox
First published 2025
Art historian James Fox documents Britain's disappearing craft traditions in an age of mass manufacturing and technological industrialization. Fox travels across British lands and communities, meeting artisans who preserve ancient practices like coopering, basket-weaving, wheelwrighting, metalwork, and blacksmithing. He encounters a rush weaver who rebuilt her sustainable basket business, visits a bell foundry operating with nineteenth-century methods, and observes dry wall builders creating stone structures meant to endure two centuries. From thatchers to bellfounders, Fox chronicles the people and practices that once made Britain the workshop of the world. Part travelogue and part historical record, the book examines what society loses when these traditions vanish in the pursuit of progress. Fox argues for returning to practices that value quality over quantity, connection over speed, and the wisdom passed between generations through handmade work.
Genres: history, travel, cultural-heritage, non-fiction, art-history
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: travelogue
Setting: Britain
Period: 19th-century, 20th-century, 21st-century
368 pages · Hardcover · The Bodley Head Ltd