The Marches: A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland

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The memorial part is nicely done, but honestly probably not of that much interest to most people who did not know the man (who does not come off as a particularly admirable person, though the familial love clearly shines through.) Suggests an open-mindedness in Stewart, a tolerance and flexibility that could make him an exceptional politician while it also continues to define him as a writer’ New York Review of Books Stewart's evaluation of his father feels entirely justified, but his self-deprecation not so much. I suspect his father -- who continued to call his son "darling" right up to the end -- was immensely proud of his son's accomplishments, and felt he was leaving his world in good hands.

Fascinating...Stewart provides wonderful insights as he visits Roman fortifications, medieval castles, and Hadrian’s Wall. This is an informative, thoughtful, and timely mix of history and travelogue.” — BOOKLIST As a writer, Stewart has a fine sense of the nature of the physical spaces he traverses, as well as the human stories (past and present) that play out in these landscapes.” —SIGNATURE Fascinating Stewart provides wonderful insights as he visits Roman fortifications, medieval castles, and Hadrian s Wall. This is an informative, thoughtful, and timely mix of history and travelogue. BOOKLIST And as the journey deepens, and the end approaches, Brian and Rory fight to match, step by step, modern voices, nationalisms and contemporary settlements to the natural beauty of the Marches, and a fierce absorption in tradition in their own unconventional lives. His book becomes a history of the Middleland, or ‘The Marches’. 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.He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance. Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil. 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. A meditation on deep history, the pull of national identity, and home, The Marches is a transporting work from a powerful and original writer.

I got a bit lost in his descriptions of the route, not knowing some the places along the way. But there are maps of his route that helped me follow where he went. He describes the landscape, the geology, sheep farming and land use, the people he met, their history and language and much, much more.As a writer, Stewart has a fine sense of the nature of the physical spaces he traverses, as well as the human stories (past and present) that play out in these landscapes." --SIGNATURE