We are delighted to welcome Rory Stewart to Cumbria to talk about his new book Middleland: Dispatches from the Borders (Jonathan Cape) in conversation with James Rebanks. Rory Stewart will be well known to Cumbrians from the decade he spent as Member of Parliament for Penrith and the Border and his leadership bid against Boris Johnson. Now co-presenter of the hit podcast The Rest is Politics, and writer of Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller, Politics On The Edge, Rory is bringing his unique experiences as diplomat, explorer, cabinet minister and writer to Kendal to discuss Middleland.
The new book sees Rory return to writing about the countryside, history, rural communities and what can be discovered by exploring the land on foot. Drawing on pieces originally written for the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald, Middleland is a portrait of rural Britain today – a place caught in tensions between farming and the natural world, between the need to preserve and to grow, between local and national politics – and a timeless evocation of the history, people and landscape of Cumbria. It is, Rory says, “the strange, surprising, often uplifting stories I found in Cumbria – stories of beauty and ingenuity, but also a hint of what a better politics might be”. Who better to discuss Middleland than acclaimed writer and Cumbrian farmer James Rebanks, whose family have lived and farmed in the Lake District for six hundred years and whose latest memoir The Place of Tides also tackles the tensions between farming and the natural world, local and national politics, ideas of progress and heritage. Expect humour, political insights and deep reflections on Cumbria’s place in the world today.
Rory Stewart is the Brady-Johnson Professor of the Practice of Grand Strategy at Yale University's Jackson School of Global Affairs, and the co-host, with Alastair Campbell, of the UK's leading podcast The Rest Is Politics.
James Rebanks is a farmer based in the Lake District. His three books, The Shepherd’s Life, English Pastoral and The Place of Tides have met with universal acclaim and seen him shortlisted for the Ondaatje prize, the Wainwright prize, and longlisted for the Rathbones Folio prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing.
Grab a copy of Middleland - don't forget to add to basket at checkout.