{ "item_title" : "Botley Farmer", "item_author" : [" David Chun "], "item_description" : "William Cobbett, best known today as the author of Rural Rides, was a towering figure in nineteenth-century British history. A radical reformer and journalist, his Political Register and other writings gave a thunderous voice to the disenfranchised in the early 1800s. Yet, during his transformative 'middle years' in Hampshire, Cobbett's public crusade for reform was mirrored by a more private, bold quest for social prestige and financial autonomy.Focusing on his time at Botley, historian David Chun provides a reconstruction of Cobbett's life as a landed gentleman. Through rigorous archival research and the first-ever cartographic identification of his estate's boundaries, Chun exposes the dubious financial foundations of Cobbett's landowning ambitions. In doing so he reveals a striking irony: despite Cobbett's fierce public objections to the escalating National Debt and the paper-money system, he himself borrowed extensively, exploiting the very credit system he despised. The narrative shows how a tightening grip of debt and government prosecution - he spent two years in Newgate prison midway through this period - took Cobbett from apparent affluence to insolvency and finally bankruptcy.Botley Farmer is an in-depth study of a man whose struggle with money and land ownership provides a vital, human dimension to his political legacy.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/91/819/174/1918191743_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "25.99", "online_price" : "25.99", "our_price" : "25.99", "club_price" : "25.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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