his tartan-clad father. His book becomes a history of the Middleland, or The Marches , what is now the frontier zone between two contemporary nations. Britain, he argues, is an island whose natural boundaries are the sea, a nation split by a colonial empire that drew a line on a map, separating tribes and families. The book is defined by a profound love of landscape, and walking, an unusual erudition, and an instinct for the most eccentric local histories. It draws on contemporary politics, and long years working in rural Asia, and on troubled borders, to illuminate the pattern of forgetting and remembrance that makes a very modern border and a very modern nationalism.

Reviews

'Engaging, intelligent and ultimately moving...in some ways, Rory Stewart resembles a Robert MacFarlane who haschosen geopolitics over metaphysics...Theresa May would do well to promote him.' Scotland on Sunday

'Stewart is the nearest person I have identified in real life to Rudyard Kipling's Kim, the all-seeing, all-knowing man-child of Empire... The heart of the book is about love... He is observant, gently mocking and he writes beautifully.' -- Melanie Reid The Times

About the Author

Rory Stewart was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Malaysia. After a brief period in the British Army, he joined the Foreign Office, serving in Indonesia and Montenegro. In 20002 he completed a two-thousand-mile walk from Turkey to Bangladesh. His account of crossing Afghanistan on foot a few months after the US invasion, The Places In Between, drew wide acclaim and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.