‘A thoughtful and human account of the enmeshment of the military into the landscapes of everyday life […] As we enter a renewed phase of militarised geo-politics, this work becomes more urgent than ever.’— Gargi Bhattacharyya, Director of the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation
In association with King’s College London, Housmans are delighted to host a talk around an essential new book: ENGLAND’S MILITARY HEARTLAND: Preparing for War on Salisbury Plain. This wonderful, alarming and brilliantly written book explores the vital, but underdiscussed, interrelations between British military and civic life.
During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the armed forces became increasingly visible – partly due to public alarm at the number of fatalities but also as a result of interventions by government, media and military leaders. Today the world is undergoing a terrifying arms race in which powerful arms companies are competing to produce new generations of killing technology, including AI and nuclear weapons. Many people feel powerless to stop their governments spending more and more on defence, and being complicit in ongoing war crimes.
In all this it’s important to remember that the military are a public institution and depend on taxpayers. The public has a right to understand the costs and consequences of maintaining a labour force for war-fighting, especially one that works closely with major arms companies and contributes heavily to global carbon emissions.
ENGLAND’S MILITARY HEARTLAND introduces a ten-year investigation of the military training area on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England and explores what it means to live next to a military base. The book questions how war blurs the boundaries between military and civilian, and what can or cannot be addressed by the use of lethal violence, sanctioned and organised by the state. To explore this we bring together a group of scholars and activists, working on land justice and military ecological damage, to think about how we resist the drive to war at home.
What is it like to live next door to a British Army base? England’s military heartland provides an eye-opening account of the sprawling military presence on Salisbury Plain, drawing on a wide range of voices from both sides of the divide.
Targeted for expansion under government plans to reorganise the UK’s global defence estate, the Salisbury ‘super garrison’ offers a unique opportunity to explore the impact of the military footprint in a particular place. But this is no ordinary environment: as well as being the world-famous site of Stonehenge, the grasslands of Salisbury Plain are home to rare plants and wildlife.
How does the army take responsibility for conserving this unique landscape as it trains young men and women to use lethal weapons? Are its claims that its presence is a positive for the environment anything more than propaganda? This book investigates these questions against the backdrop of a historic landscape inscribed with the legacy of perpetual war.
Urgent, important, and poignantly recounted.’—
Laleh Khalili, author of Sinews of War and Trade
‘Exposes the remarkable extent to which militarisation is shaping not only the lives of humans, but the character and quality of the land on which they and other creatures live.’— Cynthia Enloe, author of Twelve Feminist Lessons of War
OUR SPEAKERS:
Saskia Papadakis is a social researcher with expertise in the UK environmental movement, anti-racism and British Black Power, and socio-spatial inequalities in the UK. She organises across grassroots migrants’ rights groups in London.
Antonia Dawes is a lecturer and writer at King’s College London. She works on racism, antiracism and cultural theory. Her first book Race Talk (2020) is about race and racism in southern Italy. At this event she will speak on her new book England’s Military Heartland, co-authored with Vron Ware, Mitra Pariyar and Alice Cree.
Khem Rogaly researches the political economy of the military and its role in climate crisis. His most recent report for the thinktank Common Wealth explored the potential for a just transition away from military production through interviews with workers. He will speak about the Khaki Economy in England’s Military Heartland in relation to the escalating arms race today.
Rachael Milliner is a member of the Museum of Enclosure, an emergent, itinerant, internationalist, political education project collecting oral histories of dispossession in England. Representing the project, they will discuss how access to enclosed and militarised land is vital to performing memory work and relational accountability, calling for further interventions in dominant British property culture.
As always, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please do not hesitate to contact us at shop@housmans.com, and a free ticket will be made available.
If you choose ‘book + entry’, your copies of the book will be available to collect on the evening. If you would like to collect it earlier, or arrange for delivery, please contact us (postage is £2.95). Telephone 020 7837 4473 or email shop@housmans.com.
Doors Open at 6:45pm, Event Starts 7:00