Book review: Shaping the Past: Theme, Time and Place in Local History: Essays in Honour of David Dymond edited by Evelyn Lord and Nicholas R. Amor, Hatfield, University of Hertfordshire Press, 2020, xviii. + 215 pp., £28.00 (Hardback), ISBN: 978-1-912260-22-5

This collection of essays by the friends, colleagues and former students of David Dymond is largely focused on East Anglian history, in particular, that of Dymond’s adopted county of Suffolk. Dymond taught local history at the Continuing Education Department at Cambridge, where many of this volume’s contributors were his students. This book honours his substantial contribution to the discipline, by focusing on Dymond’s concerns of theme, time and place in explaining the everyday life experiences of ordinary people. The book’s principal value is in setting out the range of methods, sources and approaches currently adopted by leading local and regional historians, and making these accessible to a wide readership. A preface from Jane Whittle expresses the concept behind the collection, while an introduction from Mark Bailey appraises Dymond’s scholarship and introduces the chapters that follow. [opening paragraph]