Rory Stewart spent nearly a decade as MP for Britain’s most rural constituency, Penrith and the Border, living among Cumbria’s fells, farms and ancient frontiers.

Drawing on pieces written during his years as an MP, Middleland is both a love letter to rural Britain – exploring tensions between farming and the natural world, between the need to preserve and to grow, between local and national demands – and a quietly radical argument for how politics might better serve the people it represents.