How Not to Be a Politician: A Memoir

Named a Best Book of 2023 by Financial Times and Kirkus Reviews

The #1 Sunday Times bestseller, published in the UK as Politics on the Edge.

“One of the best books on politics our era will see . . . A book of astonishing literary quality.” —Matthew Parris,The TLS

“[Rory Stewart] walked across Asia, served in British Parliament, and ran against Boris Johnson. Now he gives us his view of what’s wrong with politics, and how we can make it right.” —Adam Grant, “The 12 New Fall Books to Enrich Your Thinking”

From a great writer—legendary for his expeditions into some of the world’s most forbidding places—a wise, honest, and sometimes absurdist memoir of a most remarkable journey through British politics at the breaking point

Rory Stewart was an unlikely politician. He was best known for his two-year walk across Asia—in which he crossed Afghanistan, essentially solo, in the months after 9/11—and for his service, as a diplomat in Iraq, and Afghanistan. But in 2009, he abandoned his chair at Harvard University to stand for a seat in Parliament, representing the communities and farms of the Lake District and the Scottish border—one of the most isolated and beautiful districts in England. He ran as a Conservative, though he had no prior connection to the politics and there was much about the party that he disagreed with.