The draining of the Fens in the seventeenth century was one of the most ambitious and large-scale engineering projects to be undertaken in early modern England. In the hands of a series of Dutch and English projectors, entire river systems were reconstructed, new artificial channels were created, and hundreds of acres of landscape were transformed from wetlands to arable and productive farmland, profoundly changing the lives and livelihoods of the inhabitants. But although the Crown had a vision of the Fenlands as unproductive and backwards, in need of reform and improvement, local people had a different view. In their eyes, the draining of the Fens threatened to destroy their customs, traditions, and established patterns of life—and the interventions of the Crown and its experts were bitterly resisted.

In Ash’s hands, the history of the draining of the Fens is not just a story of the physical transformation of the landscape, but a political and social story of early modern state building. Ash focuses on tensions over conflicting views of land use and productivity, issues that were closely tied up with the politically charged concepts of commonwealth and common good. The draining of the Fens serves as a case study for the antagonistic relationship between local communities—fiercely protective of their traditional customs, rights, and vernacular knowledge—and the increasingly interventionist projects and expansionist ambitions of the state. Set against this backdrop, Ash shows that the draining of the Fens was not a straightforward process, but was achieved through a series of projects, proposals, plans, and attempts at change that met with varying degrees of resistance over the course of almost a century.

This book contributes to recent scholarly interest in early modern notions of improvement, and it fits with a wider trend toward environmental and ecological history. Ash is not a newcomer to these fields: his Power, Knowledge, and Expertise in Elizabethan England (2004) surveyed several large-scale mining, building, and navigation projects, exploring how technological know-how and expertise were negotiated and deployed in different contexts. The draining of the Fens was outside the remit of this work, and Ash’s new monograph extends and in some ways nuances his earlier argument. Whereas he characterized technological projects in the Elizabethan period as part of a process of state formation, characterized by cooperation, persuasion, and the pursuit of mutual benefits by both the central state and local provinces, Ash is clear that the draining of the Fens was an example of state building: a far more aggressive, coercive, and centralized process that was imposed from above onto so-called wild and uncivilized localities.

The project to drain the Fens appealed to a wide selection of projectors and reformers whose ambitions and ideas reached far beyond the east of England. The question of what to do with the land once the Fens had been drained was taken up by projectors interested in agrarian reform and new patterns of land use on a wider scale. The drained fenland was envisioned as a tabula rasa, a newly created landscape on which to inscribe utopian visions and reforms. This kind of thinking echoes contemporary projects for settlements in Ireland and the New World, and Ash makes these connections explicit in the second half of his book. Ireland was viewed by the English Crown and its agents as a prime example of unproductive, uncivilized land, ready to be transformed and reformed. Imperial projects for plantation and land use were based on a belief in the capacity of human reason to improve the natural world; in this context, mapping and surveying were co-opted as tools of imperialism and state building. This wider outlook allows Ash to argue that the draining of the Fens was not just a local or regional issue, but that it formed part of a political set of expansionist ideas and practices.

This comprehensive account is likely to become the standard textbook for the history of the Fens. It is thoroughly researched, drawing on a wide range of printed material in addition to archival sources including court records, petitions, correspondence, and state papers. The text is illustrated with original maps and plans, as well as with photos of the Fenlands today. Ash has managed to transform a potentially specialist subject into a story of protest, resistance, and political wrangling that will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers: from those interested in the history of environment, technology, and projects, to students of the political, economic, and social history of early modern England.