PETER BREARS, Traditional Food in the South Pennines

Abstract

ciently powerful explanation for why particular types of institutions emerged’ (p. 3). The focus on systems of consumption and art dealing, however, is well done, drawing in recent studies of value creation in the art market. The merging of wider cultural, economic and semiological codes with a sense of individual taste and distinction is expertly handled. Likewise, the way private networks and activity were joined together into institutional forms is an important theme and Moore looks at how and why the personal became public in Lancashire in the late Victorian period. This book adds to and enhances the literature on histories of museums that really engages in the synergy between individuals and institutions. I particularly appreciated the way Moore linked educational systems with the development of networks of cultural institutions – placing these within a wider history of the way knowledge was shaped in the late nineteenth century. He very usefully addresses the problem of the image of a ‘race of [Northern] men... independent, practical, rough, calculating and enterprising, with little interest in the genteel or liberal arts’ (p. 5). This regional stereotype still remains – look for example the rhetoric around Brexit and the ‘Red Wall’ constituencies, or at the consistent imbalance in educational spend and access to cultural capital, highlighted in the 2018 Children’s Commissioner’s report ‘Growing up North’ and a National Curriculum that denies the poorest equal access to arts and creativity. Moore’s insightful and well-written history of the development of cultural capital in Lancashire reminds us that stereotypes can be long-lived and destructive and demands that we make a greater effort to explore and understand the histories of culture in places that have been previously overlooked. A tight geographical focus allows Moore to bring new ideas and new archives to the reader’s attention making this book an important addition to museum, gallery and heritage studies and to the wider literature on histories of the North.