East Anglia's political and economic importance in the middle ages is plain for all to see, stemming initially from its crucial position on the eastern shores of the North Sea and its participation in the successive patterns of invasion and settlement of England. Archaeological evidence abounds: burial mounds, castles, great churches deriving from the wealth created by sheep, yeoman farmhouses, and market towns of eighteenth-century elegance. Behind these visible manifestations of the march of centuries lie particular histories, and these seventeen studies from the region's best scholars reveal some of those jigsaw puzzles of time, ranging from the Domesday herring industry by way of monasteries, memorials, wills, Gainsborough and garden history to the growing passion for natural history and science in the mid nineteenth century. They make a serious contribution to an understanding of the region, and at the same time honour Norman Scarfe, whose own studies have played a notable part in the interpretation of East Anglia's history. Contributors JOHN BLATCHLY, JAMES CAMPBELL, CHRISTOPHER HARPER-BILL, CAROLE RAWCLIFFE, DAVID DYMOND, PETER NORTHEAST, COLIN RICHMOND, JUDITH MIDDLETON-STEWART, DIARMAID MacCULLOCH, HASSELL SMITH, TOM WILLIAMSON, EDWARD MARTIN, JONATHAN THEOBALD, RICHARD WILSON, HUGH BELSEY, STEVEN PLUNKETT, GEOFFREY MARTIN, MICHAEL HOWARD.

The Committee's report examines the two inquiries set up by UEA: the Independent Climate Change E-mails Review (ICCER) into the allegations against CRU and an independent external Scientific Appraisal Panel (SAP). The previous Science and Technology Committee also carried out an inquiry (The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (HC (2009-10) 387-I 9780215553362), but due to time constraints it reported prior to the publication of the ICCER and SAP findings.Of the Committee's reservations about the UEA-commissioned inquiries, the report says the scope and purpose of the SAP review appeared to change from an examination of the integrity of the science to the integrity of the scientists, and as result there has been some confusion. The disparity in length between the SAP report and ICCER could foster the impression that it was not as thorough as the ICCER. The Committee was also concerned that the SAP should have been more open and transparent and the process by which it selected the documents for review could have been more open and it should have published its working papers. In contrast the ICCER was more comprehensive and transparent, although the Committee believes that it should have taken its evidence in public. The Committee is concerned that the ICCER did not fully investigate the serious allegation relating to the deletion of emails and finds it unsatisfactory that it has been left with a verbal reassurance from the Vice Chancellor of UEA that the emails still exist. The Committee has some reservations about both inquiries but they made a number of constructive recommendations. In its view it is time to make the changes and improvements recommended and with greater openness and transparency move on.

This book is the first full-scale scientific study of East Anglian English. The author is a native East Anglian sociolinguist and dialectologist who has devoted decades to the study of the speechways of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex. He examines their relationships to other varieties of English in Britain, as well as their contributions to the formation of American English and Southern Hemisphere Englishes.