Secure from rash assault

"In 1844 William Wordsworth, his beloved Lake District threatened by the invasion of a railroad, was moved to ask, "Is then no nook of English ground secure / From rash assault?" Nineteenth-century Britain led the world in technological innovation and urbanization, and unprecedented population growth contributed as well to the "assault" on Victorian countrysides. Yet James Winter finds that, despite revolutionary changes that easily could have resulted in long-term, widespread ecological damage, the British environment was by and large spared such a fate."--BOOK JACKET. "Winter's illumination of Victorian attitudes toward the exploitation of natural resources offers a valuable preamble to ongoing discussions of human intervention in the environment."--BOOK JACKET.