This detailed and informative account provides an outstanding and perceptive critique of the role played by the state in transforming the agricultural sector and the rural community in the Second World War. It perceptively challenges the consensual and monolithic narrative of state control which has dominated our understanding since the official history was written in the early 1950s. The main theme linking the chapters together is the vitally important role played by the War Agricultural Executive Committees, which were tasked with the role of implementing the food production campaign at the local level. The book explores not only their origins and the rationale for their establishment but, more importantly, the way the Committees reflected the hierarchical and class ridden nature of rural society. In particular it shows how class consciousness and gender discrimination remained a recurring feature of the period.

The text provides a thorough, well balanced evaluation of the challenges facing the state in transforming what was, up to that time, a tepid agricultural economy into a fully functioning productive sector within five years. It explores the problems facing the state in order to bring about an essentially unprecedented structural transformation involving the expansion of arable farming at the expense of livestock production. The author's analysis of the significance and complexity of the way the Committees operated is unrivalled. This is particularly evident in terms of the detailed critique of the membership of the local Committees, and the role they played in surveillance. It also explores how these power relationships operated in practice, particularly in respect of the controversial system of dispossession. The author quite rightly devotes a chapter to exploring the tragic case of Ray Walden, a small dairy farmer in Hampshire, who lost his life in the process of being evicted from his farm. In undertaking this herculean task the author should be congratulated for such a meticulous and comprehensive investigation of a wide range of secondary and primary sources. The illustrations are very impressive, particularly the details relating to the composition of the individual committees. Unlike most other accounts, the author provides a thorough and painstaking investigation into regional variations of the impact of wartime control, which encompasses not only fenland and coastal marches but also a chapter on the impact of wartime control in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

There are, as with all books, a number of issues which a reviewer might take issue with. A sharper, more detailed assessment could have been made of the extent to which the Committees’ achievements led to a significant increase in agricultural output and productivity, rather than their ability to bring about a structural realignment, with the switch from pastoral to arable farming. Questions might also be raised about the occasional dependence on very long quotations which are inserted in the text. Other very minor points include claims about the doubling of barley yields in Scotland (p. 307). Such criticisms are, however, incredibly minor and do little, if anything, to detract from the quality of the analysis. This extensively researched and comprehensive account will not only be essential reading for agricultural specialists and academics focusing on the Second World War, but will also have considerable appeal to those interested in the history of the countryside. The author's efforts in producing a book with this level of analysis deserve unconditional praise. The most important issue of concern is the cost of the book, which is only available as a hardback for £75, and it is this rather than the quality of its analysis which will inevitably limit its market.