The Marches: A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland

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With every step, Stewart reveals the force of myths and traditions and the endurance of ties that are woven into the fabric of the land itself. Een ode aan de hoogbejaarde vader van de auteur (flink in de 90), een ode aan Schotland en meer nog aan The Marches, een gebied tussen Engeland en Schotland dat eerder in de geschiedenis als een aparte regio werd gezien. If the whole book was like the third part, the last 50 pages that is, it would have been great (the third part explains the two stars). Overdevelopment of rural areas is certainly a valid concern, but when a major part of the ending of the book is a plaintive lament that a housing development will leave the aforementioned ancestral estate with ONLY a SQUARE MILE of property around it, and he just won't be able to remain on the family lands because that will just be so *dreadfully crowded*, he comes off as simply the worst sort of blindly, selfishly entitled aristocrat, genuinely out of touch with the concerns of the average citizen. The whole book is permeated with his love and respect for his father, but this last section is all about Brian Stewart.

THE MARCHES | Kirkus Reviews THE MARCHES | Kirkus Reviews

It is forbidden to copy anything for publication elsewhere without written permission from the copyright holder. That is unfortunate, but hardly surprising (after all, 75% of American students cannot locate Israel on a world map). There are few authors whose books are automatic purchases, whatever the subject, universal or arcane. The book is a fascinating study of nationalism and made me realize how many of our ideas about nations and nationality are recent inventions, and more invention than anything else.I also struggled to retain interest through the name-dropping of obscure 60s politicians and what I felt was some rather excessive quoting of old English monks/scribes (or, as Stewart is at pains to point out numerous times, old Northumbrian, Norse, Celtic, Pict, Roman and Cumbrian monks and scribes). Overall it was an enjoyable read, the book had some random thoughts that appeared throughout the book when it may have been better to stick with the journey itself. With every fresh encounter–from an Afghanistan veteran based on Hadrian’s Wall to a shepherd who still counts his flock in sixth-century words–Stewart uncovers more about the forgotten peoples and languages of a vanished country, now crushed between England and Scotland. I expected the entire book to be a travelogue, but it also told of the author's relationship to his father and of his father's final years. I love the landscape he's writing about, I'm not at all averse to his thesis, but as time went on I felt more and more patronized.

The Marches: A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland

Book Three: The General Danced on the Lawn about his father, who died at the age of 93, before this book was finished.and “–Publishers Weekly and “Stewart brings a humane empathy to his encounters with people and landscape. Fascinating Stewart provides wonderful insights as he visits Roman fortifications, medieval castles, and Hadrian s Wall. Rory Stewart once did a walk across Afghanistan, which you can read about in his book, The Places in Between, which got a lot of acclaim.

The Marches : A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland

At the end of the Marches is a Chronology which I found very interesting, defining The Middleland before AD100 up to the present days.

Those who do love the old tales and traditions repeatedly come under fire from him for being inauthentic and inaccurate (this may be true, but one would think we could appreciate the passion and love these people have, regardless.

The Marches: A Borderland Journey between England and Scotland

Mixing sleeping out on mountains staying in other accommodation, he takes 21 days to complete it, but it is as much a discovery of the landscape, region and the people that inhabit it and learning about its fluid and torrid past. Growing up in the north-east of England I really wanted to enjoy this book, and although there are some fascinating insights I found it lacking purpose and direction. is just such an author, and here, he introduces his father to give us an idea of where he got his drive to fully understand the people around him. An imagined history is a powerful force, so while there may have been no kilts or Scottish Gaelic in the lowlands 200 years ago, they have been imagined into existence now. Stewart had set out on his Hadrian's Wall hike with some thought that the wall marked a separation between Scots and English peoples.Ik weet niet of ik auteur of zijn vader in de dagelijkse omgang sympathiek zou gevonden hebben, maar dat doet er niet toe. A survivor of D-Day he served with Scottish brigades as well as having a career in the Intelligence Service all over the world.