Audiobook10 hours
The Debatable Land: The Lost World Between Scotland and England
Written by Graham Robb
Narrated by Saul Reichlin
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Two years ago, Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, near the banks of a river that 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 slaughtered or deported, it became the last part of Great Britain to be brought under the control of the state. Today, it has vanished from the map and its boundaries are matters of myth and generational memories.
Under the spell of a powerful curiosity, Robb began a journey that would uncover lost towns and roads, and unlock more than one discovery of major historical significance. These personal and scholarly adventures reveal a tale that spans Roman, Medieval, and present-day Britain.
Rich in detail 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.
Under the spell of a powerful curiosity, Robb began a journey that would uncover lost towns and roads, and unlock more than one discovery of major historical significance. These personal and scholarly adventures reveal a tale that spans Roman, Medieval, and present-day Britain.
Rich in detail 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.
Author
Graham Robb
Graham Robb was born in Manchester in 1958 and is a former fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. He has published widely on French literature and history. His book The Discovery of France won both the Duff Cooper and Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prizes. For Parisians the City of Paris awarded him the Grande Médaille de la Ville de Paris. He lives on the English-Scottish border.
More audiobooks from Graham Robb
France: An Adventure History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsParisians: An Adventure History of Paris Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for The Debatable Land
Rating: 3.586206982758621 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
29 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is an unexpected gem - set in the borders of Scotland and England, the author tells the history of the area, while he rides around it on a bicycle in appalling weather!This is the "borders" made famous by Walter Scott's "historical" novels set in the area. Robb makes clear that this "wild west" period was an aberration, and that the area had a much more interesting story to tell. The "debatable" land was not debatable in the sense of being contentious - the root of the word "batable" meant "fattening" - this was an area for fattening stock. For many centuries, by common agreement, it was used for that purpose. No one lived there, but many used the land as a free agistment paddock.Then in the 1500s, rivalry between monarchs in London and Edinburgh led to outside stoking of wild behaviour. Think Afghanistan. The wild and lawless period then raged, and only died down in the 1600s. The wildness was later captured in highly inaccurate ballads and poems and immortalised. Thus to Walter Scott.The author then covers early mapping of the area, and UK generally, and highlights the extraordinary accuracy of maps by Ptolemy almost 2,000 years ago.And then there is a short but convincing foray into the possibility that the original King Arthur may have fought, and died, in this part of the world.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Debatable Land makes up part of the border between Scotland and England. At just 13 miles long and 8 miles wide, the territory was initially a sort of no-man’s-land between the two countries, and uninhabited. But from the 13th to 16th centuries, the land was occupied by reivers, clans that seized claim to land, stole cattle and killed anyone who got in their way. Historian Graham Robb traces the development of the Debatable Land and its people, from its earliest days to the present. He examines how people once identified more with a clan than a nationality, despite borders that partitioned the land between the two countries. Even today, the nature of the landscape maintains the Debatable Land’s insular culture.For me, one of the most interesting aspects of the book was Robb’s use of Ptomely’s ancient maps to trace the history of the Debatable Land back to Roman times, which led to a few breakthrough findings about the development of the Debatable Land over the centuries. Then, towards the end of the book Robb discusses the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, which was defeated, and the 2016 Brexit vote, which was not, and the uncertainty cast upon the region and its people. While the Debatable Land no longer exists as a defined territory, it continues to cast a long shadow.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It may be a really interesting exploration of various aspects of Roman-to-medieval Britain, but I didn't get past the about 150 pages.My greatest difficulty was the author's inability to keep his narrative flowing smoothly. There would be an interesting start to a little anecdote or a piece of history which then was left dangling, never to be referred to further in the following pages. I discovered this tendency right in the beginning when Robb is describing the train station where some poor fellow stuck his head out the window and was decapitated as the train picked up speed past a signal post. And this is told us with no raison d'être, no follow up. What the heck??!!I did expect to have all sorts of 'myths' exposed as mere tales by imaginative inhabitants, but my ability to follow this aspect of the narrative was depressingly foiled. Some of the descriptive passages about the countryside were wonderful reading. Unfortunately, these details didn't clarify the story's theme (which I thought I was following), so my understanding was repeatedly foiled. It may have been my fault as much as the author's style. Nevertheless, I did rate it as 3-stars even though it was a DNF.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A few miles inland from the western coast at the northern edge of England a thick splinter of land 13 miles long is Robb's key to examining not only it's history, but several other misplaced misappropriated bits of British history. If you like your English or Scottish tales to retain their Victorian or even medieval contours, this book disrespects those preferences wholesale.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Its interesting, but it feels a little thin. The Debatable Land is a strip of ground between England and Scotland that is not really "debatable" in the sense of "contested" but more of mutually agreed neutral buffer zone, at least until the 16th century. Graham Robb buys a house on the border - in fact the border marks the edge of his property - and thus in the Debatable Land. This book represents his musings on the nature of borders and the nationality of people who live in border regions, particularly in reference to the Scottish Independence referendum and Brexit. He also narrates the history of the area from Romans to Reivers (basically cross border outlaws, from which, interestingly is derived the word bereived - to be taken from).But there really isn't that much to say. So the book also includes further Robb hypotheses on The Celts, the subject of his previous book and a fairly convincing set of ideas about King Arthur and Arthurian battles, which don't really have anything to do with The Debatable Land per se.Its interesting, but it meanders, much like the river Liddel that runs through it
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A fascinating, insightful read on "The Debatable Land," a contentious wedge of territory between England and Scotland that was once roamed by Romans, reivers, and these days, by likewise independent sorts. It is a land rich in history--and many mysteries. This is a book that doesn't come up with answers, but thoughtful, scholarly perspectives on a geography little changed over centuries.