William Atkins's journey took him across the threshold between town and city, ancient and modern, public and private, cultivation and wildness - and, above all, along the fault-line between two great forces that have forged modern Britain: our rural heritage and the industrial revolution.

The book is an account of a deeply personal journey into this distinctive and very British landscape, taking the reader from south to north, from the tamest moor to the wildest. It's both travelogue and natural history, and an exploration of the position of moorland in our literature, history and psyche. It's not merely an account of solitary wandering, but of encounters, busy with the voices of the moors, past and present - gamekeepers and ramblers, shepherds and huntsmen, miners and archaeologists, publicans and priests, meteorologists and dry-stone wallers, environmentalists and developers.

The Moor is a journey into Britain's single most expansive natural habitat - and its most mysterious.