Welsh Journals

sought to condemn, control or reorganize what workers could be allowed to see were cultural elitists whose patronising attitudes had some resonance but little effect. It should be added that many socialists, from R. H. Tawney who thought it 'unintelligent and impertinent' to pronounce on how workers spent their meagre leisure time, to Aneurin Bevan who acted as a 'technical adviser on parliamentary procedure' for the political thriller Four Just Men (1939), were noticeably more libertarian in thought and deed. Most cinema-goers were working-class. Most were bored by the uplifting documentary and turned off by the upper-class twitter of stage actors relocated on the Silver Screen. No doubt Peter Stead's forthcoming book, in this Cinema and Society series, on the reception of Hollywood Cinema, will explain even more fully why this was a cultural phenomenon that historians of Wales must now address if we are to understand how the dancing legs of James Cagney had more of a popular Welsh tap- root than the promoted sentimentality of Ivor Novello and Paul Robeson combined. Taste (popular) and Distaste (elitist) are key elements in the decoding of the structured Thirties, a task just as urgent, and just as possible, in our historical reconstruction as anyone else's. DAI SMITH Cardiff SETTLEMENT AND SOCIETY IN WALES. Edited by D. Huw Owen. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1989. Pp 315, 62 figs., 12 plates. £ 35.00. This volume takes the form of eleven essays by a range of diverse specialists whose areas of interest contribute to an understanding of settlement and society in Wales from the earliest times to 1914. The individual chapters can be divided into four basic groups. The first, and introductory, group is formed by the editor's own introduction and a paper by Glanmor Williams on local and national history in Wales which is, in essence, an update of his article on this subject which was first published in this journal (ante, V, 1970). The physical structure, vegetation and landscape of the principality are then tackled in essays by D. Q. Bowen, William Linnard and the late Frank Emery respectively. This is followed by papers describing three specialist disciplines which can contribute to the study of settlement and society: place names (Gwynedd Pierce), houses and building styles (Peter Smith) and archaeology (H. N. Savory). The latter also deals with prehistoric and Roman settlement and thus provides a link with the fourth group, comprising historical studies which are either period-specific-the dark ages (Glanville Jones) and the middle ages (D. Huw Owen)-or period and topic specific-the emergence of the modem settlement pattern (1450-1700) (Matthew Griffiths), rural settlements in the modem period (Colin Thomas), urban and industrial settlement in the modem period (1750-1914) (Harold Carter).