Rory Stewart’s romantic view of Cumbria is wide of the mark
It’s tricky for writers to gather up pieces of old work and collect them in significant literary form. It’s risky for former politicians to publish outdated commentaries, with no agenda other than to show politics on the ground and as a record of their efforts and prejudices. Most hazardous of all is titling a book in such a way that it eschews the established geographical and psychological identity of the region it describes. These are the challenges Rory Stewart sets for himself in Middleland. The book consists of the granary-floor sweepings of journalistic pieces published in the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald while Stewart served as MP for Penrith and the
