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Middleland

Dispatches from the Borders
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Middleland

By: Rory Stewart
Narrated by: Rory Stewart
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Political life as seen from Britain’s most rural constituency – from the author of the Sunday Times no. 1 bestseller Politics on the Edge and co-host of The Rest is Politics

Rory Stewart spent nearly a decade as MP for Britain’s most rural constituency, Penrith and the Border. As he came to know and love this part of Cumbria, he found inspiration in the beauty of its landscape, its rugged history as a frontierland, and in the spirit of its people.

Drawing on pieces originally written for a local newspaper, Middleland is an urgent and inspiring 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 – as well as a timeless evocation of the history, people and landscape of Cumbria.
These are stories of beauty and ingenuity but also a hint of what a better politics might be.

© Rory Stewart 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Anthropology Europe Great Britain Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Rural Science Sociology Words, Language & Grammar Writing & Publishing Village

Critic Reviews

Rory Stewart has written a remarkable book about community and countryside, his community, his countryside. It is both telling and tender. He is treading in the footsteps of Thomas Hardy and Edward Thomas in his understanding of our need to belong and to contribute. A rare and life-affirming story of searching and finding our place to be and to cherish. (Michael Morpurgo)
Urgent and inspiring, Middleland is at once a hymn to the beauty of the Cumbrian landscape, a testament to the spirit of its people, and a powerful argument for political reform. Deeply rooted in history and the land, personal, wise and often funny, this is a heartfelt celebration of local people and place, and an invitation to imagine a different kind of politics. (Caroline Lucas)
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