RSA Thursday: Real England: battle of the bland

We see the signs around us every day: chain cafes and superstores dominate our high streets. For Kingsnorth these signs point to a bigger picture of a nation whose identity is being eroded.

With Paul Kingsnorth, writer, journalist and environmental campaigner

Chaired by Martin Wright, editor of Green Futures magazine

We see the signs around us every day: the chain cafes and superstores that dominate our high streets; the decline of small farms and the loss of post offices; the headlines about yet another traditional industry going to the wall.

In his new book Real England, writer and journalist Paul Kingsnorth makes the connection between these isolated, incremental, local changes and the bigger picture of a nation whose identity is being eroded. As he travels around the country meeting fruit-growers, lock keepers, stall owners and the inhabitants of Chinatown, Kingsnorth records the kind of conversations that are taking place in country pubs and corner shops across the land – while warning us that, unless we act, such quintessentially English institutions may cease to exist.
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