Leah Gordon's Stunning Visual History of Radical English Commoners

With collaborators Stephen Ellcock and Annabel Edwards, British photographer and filmmaker Leah Gordon has produced a gloriously eccentric and sumptuous folk history of land rights, enclosure and resistance among English commoners. Their book, 'Common People' (Watkins, 2025) features stunning historical paintings, etchings, and folk relics from local cultures of commoning, as well as contemporary photographs of commoners who continue these traditions as Ramblers, Gypsies, travelers, squatters, festival-goers, ravers, antinuclear protesters, and nature lovers. The visual imagery is augmented by a series of insightful essays about "vanquished peasants," vagabonds, rural rebels, and folk traditions, revealing how historical memory about the commons is still very much alive in England. For more on the commons, go to www.Bollier.org.