Debatable Land

Rory Stewart lived in the Eden Valley of Cumbria for ten years, serving as the Member of Parliament for Penrith and the Border – the largest and most sparsely populated constituency in England – much of which he explored on foot. Half Scottish and half English, he spent his childhood between Britain, Malaysia and Hong Kong. After a very brief period in the British Army, he served as a British diplomat in Indonesia, the Balkans and Iraq, establishing and running a charity in Afghanistan, and holding a chair at Harvard University. He has also been a UK environment minister, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Minister of State for Justice and Secretary of State for International Development. His 21-month 6,000-mile walk across Asia, including Afghanistan, is recorded in his New York Times bestseller The Places in Between. His other books include Occupational Hazards, The Marches, and Politics on the Edge, which was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. Stewart is now 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.