Rory Stewart is a member of the British Parliament and the author of The Places in Between, The Prince of the Marshes, and, most recently, Can Intervention Work? (with Gerald Knaus). He lives in Cumbria, Britain.
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Lessons from Afghanistan
August 16, 2012
The Dark Defile: Britain’s Catastrophic Invasion of Afghanistan, 1838–1842
by Diana Preston
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Afghanistan: What Could Work
January 14, 2010
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The Queen of the Quagmire
October 25, 2007
Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations
by Georgina Howell
Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell, Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia
by Janet Wallach
Gertrude Bell: The Lady of Iraq
by H.V.F. Winstone
Review of the Civil Administration in Mesopotamia by Gertrude Bell
The Gertrude Bell Project
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Iraq: The Question
May 31, 2007
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Walking with Chatwin
June 25, 2012
The publication of Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines in 1987 transformed English travel writing; it made it cool. For the previous half century, travel writing seemed to consist either of grim, extended journeys through desolate landscapes or jokes about foreigners. But Chatwin was as attractive as a person as he was as a writer. The New York Times review of The Songlines ran: “Nearly every writer of my generation in England has wanted, at some point, to be Bruce Chatwin, wanted to be talked about, as he is, with raucous envy; wanted, above all, to have written his books.” I was no exception. Aged twenty, I thought that even his untruths were immensely erudite.