The Marches
The Marches

Author: Rory Stewart

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2016-11-22

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 0544105796

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This father-and-son trek through the history and landscape of the United Kingdom is “a sensitive exploration of what borders mean and don’t mean” (The Wall Street Journal). In The Places in Between, Rory Stewart walked some of the most dangerous borderlands in the world. Now he travels with his eighty-nine-year-old father—a comical, wily, courageous, and infuriating former British intelligence officer—along the border they call home. On Stewart’s four-hundred-mile walk across a magnificent natural landscape, he sleeps on mountain ridges and in housing projects, in hostels and farmhouses. With every fresh encounter—from an Afghanistan veteran based on Hadrian’s Wall to a shepherd who still counts his flock in sixth-century words—Stewart uncovers more about the forgotten peoples and languages of a vanished country, now crushed between England and Scotland. Stewart and his father are drawn into unsettling reflections on landscape, their parallel careers in the bygone British Empire and Iraq, and the past, present, and uncertain future of the United Kingdom. And as the end approaches, the elder Stewart’s stubborn charm transforms this chronicle of nations into a fierce, exuberant encounter between a father and a son. “[Stewart] anchors his lively mix of history, travelogue, and reportage on local communities in a vibrant portrait of his father, who was both a tartan-wearing Scotsman and a thoroughly British soldier and diplomat.”—Publishers Weekly “Stewart brings a humane empathy to his encounters with people and landscape.”—The Washington Post “An unforgettable tale.” —National Geographic

Compendious Journal of All the Marches, Famous Battles & Sieges (of Marlborough)
Compendious Journal of All the Marches, Famous Battles & Sieges (of Marlborough)

Author: Serjeant John Millner

Publisher: Andrews UK Limited

Published: 2012-09-07

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 1781497370

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The author, an officer of the Royal Regiment of Foot of Ireland, was sent with eleven other regiments under General Richard Ingoldsby by William III to his native Holland in 1701. Millner took with him a diary to record his experiences. So began his 'compendious journal' of Britain's campaigns against France in the twelve opening years of the 18th century, many under the command of that great Captain, John, Duke of Marlborough. Such an eye-witness account, rare even during the Napoleonic Wars a century later, was unusual indeed in the early 18th century, which makes this book a prized treasure to the student of Marlborough's campaigns. Present at the battles of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, Millner's account is also unusual for the trouble he has taken, not merely to describe the battles, sieges, skirmishes and other engagements he witnessed, but also to assemble much detailed data (laid out in the form of tables) of casualties, orders of battle etc. As such his book is an indispensible aid to all students of 18th century warfare and of Marlborough's campaigns in particular. A rare and valued find indeed.