When Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, he discovered that the river winding around his new home had once marked the southern boundary of the legendary Debatable Land. The oldest detectable territorial division in Great Britain, the Debatable Land served as a buffer between Scotland and England. It was once the bloodiest region in the country, fought over by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and James V. After most of its population was slaughered or deported, it became the last part of Great Britain to be brought under the control of the state. Today, it has vanished fromthe map and its boundaries are matters of myth and generational memories.
Under the spell of a powerful curiosity, Robb began a journey — on foot, by bicycle, and into the past — that would uncover lost towns and roads, and unlock morethan one discovery of major …
When Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, he discovered that the river winding around his new home had once marked the southern boundary of the legendary Debatable Land. The oldest detectable territorial division in Great Britain, the Debatable Land served as a buffer between Scotland and England. It was once the bloodiest region in the country, fought over by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and James V. After most of its population was slaughered or deported, it became the last part of Great Britain to be brought under the control of the state. Today, it has vanished fromthe map and its boundaries are matters of myth and generational memories.
Under the spell of a powerful curiosity, Robb began a journey — on foot, by bicycle, and into the past — that would uncover lost towns and roads, and unlock morethan one discovery of major historical significance. These personal and scholarly adventures reveal a tale that spans Roman, Medieval, and present-day Britain.
Rich in detial and epic in scope, The Debatable Land takes us from a time when neither England nor Scotland existed to the present day, when contemporary nationalism and political turmoil threaten to unsettle the cross-border community once more. With his customary charm, wit, and literary grace, Graham Robb proves the Debatable Land to be a crucial, missing piece in the puzzle of British history.
There's four or more different books going on here: a history of Liddesdale and the Borders, a memoir/travelogue of moving to and exploring this area, a treatise on interpretation of Ptolemy's geography, and a speculation on the possible historic basis of some Arthurian history. The problem is that they don't come together into a coherent whole, so the book is more a series of digressions. Just when something is getting interesting, it ends for something else to come in instead. It's a shame because the section at the heart of the book with tales of the reiver families of the border is interesting and I wanted more of it.
