REVIEWS 237

policy based on the same principles as private landlords: rents were high and families were selected according to ability to pay; the normal market forces of supply and demand were not undermined. There was a clear dichotomy between small, cheap houses for unskilled, low-income families who had moved from slums where they had lived for a considerable time, forming a disadvantaged group trapped in inadequate housing; and better houses for skilled workers coming from reasonable accommodation where they had lived for only a short time, suggesting an ability to move about in the housing market. Pooley and Irish elaborate and refine this dichotomy within the context of Liverpool. The question remains: how does this compare with other large cities? There appears, for example, to have been none of the debate over cross-subsidy between prosperous tenants of 1920s "general purpose" housing and 1930s slum-clearance property which was such an issue in Leeds. There, the rental and allocation policy of private landlords was overturned. It is hoped that more local studies will allow some firm conclusions to be drawn on what was general and what was peculiar to a particular city. Meanwhile, Pooley and Irish provide a valuable indication of what is possible to the assiduous researcher.

University College London M. J. DAUNTON

ALEXANDER FENTON and GEOFFREY STELL (Eds), Loads and Roads in Scotland and Beyond." Land Transport over 6000 years (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1984. Pp. 144. s

Loads and Roads is the result of a conference, and its odd collection of topics is no doubt a result of this. Moreover, two of the chapters are revised versions of papers originally given in the mid 1970s. Chapters 4 and 5 are concerned with the history of bridge construction (one with a single bridge), whilst chapter 6 gives an historical account of wheelless transport in northern Scotland. The final chapter is entitled "The Distribution of Carts and Wagons", is introduced as looking "at distribution patterns on maps" (p. v), but is in fact more concerned with the different types of vehicles per se and has no maps at all. Historical geographers are more likely to be interested in the first three chapters. In the first, J. M. Coles deals competently with the problems of identifying prehistoric roads in Britain, though sadly he says almost nothing about Scotland. In his "Further Reading" he complains (quite rightly) about the lack of references in C. C. Taylor's Roads and Tracks of Britain (1979) but gives none himself. G.S . Maxwell then gives a clear and lucid account of the Roman roads of Scotland, dealing in turn with their history, network, construction and gradients, well illustrated with a map, diagrams and air photos. In the third chapter, G. W. S. Barrow provides the highlight of the book, dealing with the difficulties of the evidence for medieval roads in Scotland. He looks at documentary and map evidence in much detail, though clearly this is a topic which requires even more detailed research in order to allow a cartographic reconstruction of the medieval road network. Overall, this is an interesting book, but it has a conspicuous lack of direction. Instead of the random collection of papers (mostly) about aspects of Scottish transport, it could have much more usefully focused on roads in Scotland; the need for them, their construction, the networks created, and so on. Or, it could have been about one of the other aspects of transport history. The present mixture is not particularly satisfactory, though individual parts are excellent.

University of Salford BRIAN PAUL HANDLE

NILS AHLBERG and THOMAS HALL, Uppsala. Scandinavian Atlas of Historic Towns No. 4 (Odense: Institute of Urban History, Stockholm, 1983. Pp. 43 + 35 loose sheets of maps. Dan. Kr. 160.00)

This collection is the second to be issued under the revised plan for the Scandinavian Atlas, and its contents are similar to those of its predecessor concerning Ribe (reviewed