This volume investigates how ordinary medieval and early modern individuals perceived their material environment and constructed personal and communal identities through their interaction with the landscape. The authors, S. A. Mileson and Stuart Brookes, utilize a combination of historical records and archaeological data to challenge traditional top-down approaches to landscape history. By focusing on the specific locale of Ewelme Hundred, they argue that the lived experience of the peasantry was central to the formation of local identity and social structure.

Scholars in the field recognize this work as a significant shift in methodology for landscape history by centering the perspective of non-elite populations. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the rigorous use of local historical evidence to support the authors' claims.