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The Debatable Land: The Lost World Between Scotland and England Paperback – Illustrated, June 11, 2019

by Graham Robb (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 289 ratings
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"[An] entertaining work of geographical sleuthing.…Surprises abound." ―The New Yorker

An oft-overlooked region lies at the heart of British national history: the Debatable Land. The oldest detectable territorial division in Great Britain, the Debatable Land once served as a buffer between England and Scotland. 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, its boundaries have vanished from the map and are matters of myth and generational memories. In The Debatable Land, historian Graham Robb recovers the history of this ancient borderland in an exquisite tale that spans Roman, Medieval, and present-day Britain. Rich in detail and epic in scope, The Debatable Land provides a crucial, missing piece in the puzzle of British history.

16 pages of black and white illustrations
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    June 11, 2019
  5. Dimensions
    5.6 x 1 x 8.3 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0393357058
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0393357059
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Robb intercuts the past and present, the intimate and the impersonal, to wonderful effect. Few authors write so well about things lost and neglected―or have such sharp ears and eyes for the natural world."
― Ian Jack, Guardian

"Revelatory."
― Alan Taylor, Literary Review

"It’s a book worth reading… it contains several glories, much fine writing and the odd (very odd) wonder."
― Andrew Marr, Sunday Times (UK)

"A detective outing on native soil. Armed with energy, humour, a poet’s eye and a bicycle―all things his fans will be familiar with―Robb probes the received wisdoms of the past… His skill as a writer is to understand, without being fey, the fourth dimension: peeling back the modern landscape to find buried stories."
― Times (UK)

"Graham Robb, apart from being a distinguished historian, biographer and literary critic, is one of our most accomplished travel writers.… [He] bicycles with the speed and ferocity of a Scottish reiver through these lost flatlands of history."
― Spectator

"An amiably learned, leisurely tour of the land’s history, chinked with anecdotes."
― Christian Science Monitor

"Focusing on this one remarkable region, Robb’s two-wheeled perspective and highly observant eye allow him to ruminate through the Celtic, medieval, and present eras with ease; readers are lucky to join him on his enthralling journey."
― Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"An imagination-stimulating work in which the past seems to ‘dissolve and reshape itself.’"
― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

About the Author

Graham Robb is the author of three prize-winning biographies, each selected as New York Times Best Books. His books, including The Discovery of Middle Earth, Parisians, and The Discovery of France, have earned several awards. He lives on the Anglo-Scottish border.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Illustrated edition (June 11, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393357058
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393357059
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.6 x 1 x 8.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 289 ratings

About the author

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Graham Robb

Graham Robb

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Graham Robb, whose recent books include "The Discovery of France" and "Parisians," has published widely in French literature and history. His biographies of Balzac, Victor Hugo, and Rimbaud have won critical acclaim and were selected as New York Times Editor’s Choices for best books of the year. Robb lives in Oxford, England.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
289 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Anne French
5.0 out of 5 stars Robb's book makes you see Scottish and English history in a new light
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2018
Verified Purchase
Armed with this book, I went to the Debatable Land on a recent trip to the UK and started exploring. I found my ancestors buried in the Canonbie Kirkyard, just as Robb promised, and explored the region as well as you can in two days in a car. (Better done by bicycle, as Robb himself did it.) Fantastic work of history: authoritative and illuminating.
22 people found this helpful
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jaw
4.0 out of 5 stars How long a way of life can continue while everything around it changes
Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2018
Verified Purchase
Being of Scottish heritage I found this a fascinating microcosm of the border wars between England and Scotland. The writing has a light touch and a wonderful understanding of the geography and how it influenced the use of the land. It brought to life the spirit and almost joyful brutality of the post-Roman middle of the British isles
5 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Border Warriors
Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2018
Verified Purchase
Excellent book about the amazing area of the reivers. Stealing cattle and sheep
these people didn't worry about the English or Scottish governments.
One person found this helpful
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R. Cash
5.0 out of 5 stars Book was in beautiful condition
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2021
Verified Purchase
This hardback book was in perfect condition. Interesting history of this small area on the England/Scotland border.
One person found this helpful
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Edward W. Goggin
3.0 out of 5 stars Meh
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2021
Verified Purchase
Though there are nuggets of interest here, the book is clearly more for the specialist than the general reader. Sentences and paragraphs that may well be easily accessible to those greatly familiar with the particular weeds, leave the general reader on his own to reread the sentence or paragraph again and sometimes again to wrest some clear sense from the frustrating thicket. There seems something intransigent about the author who shuns the editing that would provide a more pleasant and flowing read. He appears like the surly bicyclist who persists down the center of the lane doing 20 on a 45, refusing the very notion of sidling over for the sake of the rest of the world. “Let them make do!”
And all this has for its coda a rather snarky set of squeaks about Brexit which is worth something less than the expression on my cats face before he coughs up a hairball, and considerably less than the hairball itself.
Thus I suggest the general reader should consider taking a pass on this account.
23 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars The Debatable Land: A comprehensive study of the Scot/English border.
Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2020
Verified Purchase
This an in-depth report of the history related to the small area (50 square miles, thirteen miles by eight and one-half miles at its widest point) of the Scotch/English border known as the Debateable Land as well as the remaining border land of northern England and southern Scotland. The book is interesting because it includes the main points of the history pertaining to that area covering the years from the Roman occupation of Britton to the seventeenth century. The author moved near Carlisle close to the border and toured the area by bicycle in 2010-2016 and used many sources to research the history and geography. The book would be of special interest to readers with family members having surnames of Armstrong (I am one of them), Elliot, Graham, Fraser, Irwin, Johnstone or Nixon as these were the notorious border Reivers of the sixteenth century in border area. One problem with the index is that the references are given with page numbers for the print edition and are useless for use in reading with the e-book. The author says that you can use the search function of your device but that is not practicable.
9 people found this helpful
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L Dickson
5.0 out of 5 stars The clarity of his writing and elegance of the work made reading this book fun
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2018
Verified Purchase
Loved the way Robb explained the origin of all the words. Excellent history. Hope to see it all someday. A masterful work. Fascinating
4 people found this helpful
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Lynne Strickland
5.0 out of 5 stars Debatable land book
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2019
Verified Purchase
Really like this author and his style of writing.
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Top reviews from other countries

Dave L
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
Reviewed in Canada on September 10, 2020
Verified Purchase
I'd never heard of the Debatable Lands until I saw this book. It covers a fascinating and neglected subject in English and Scottish history.
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Jac Aranda
5.0 out of 5 stars A Look at the Turbulent History of the Land Around the Border of Scotland and England
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 9, 2021
Verified Purchase
I found this a very interesting book about a part of the country I knew little about, though I have travelled through it and round it a few times. Having been inspired by his earlier book on Celtic routes I knew a little about Robbs preference for research by bike and care for delving into historical detail. Once again he has dug up some fascinating local history and make some original surprising discoveries. A fascinating tale of reivers families, culture and activities, some true others fake news of the time. A wonderfully rich look into the recent and far past stories of the border regions between England and Scotland.
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Evie
5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyed the trip back to Scotland
Reviewed in Australia on August 7, 2019
Verified Purchase
I was born and brought up in Scotland and visit every couple of years if I can. The last trip back we actually stayed in the area so beautifully - and accurately - depicted in this book.
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Andy White
4.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable mixed bag
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 7, 2022
Verified Purchase
Graham Robb has an original, personal writing style, a mix of travelogue and academic research, the formal and the informal. It is engaging, enthusiastic, convincing and full of local knowledge. However there are some potential drawbacks, which depend on your field of interest and your politics.

Dr Robb's focus is firmly on Liddesdale and the mouth of the Solway, the fairly small part of the borderlands which traditionally belonged to neither England nor Scotland and was officially abolished by both governments in 1551. In the course of his narrative Robb draws various conclusions about the reivers and the way that the Anglo-Scottish border arrangements worked, with a stress on the mainly peaceable situation prior to the 1500s. But if you are interested in other parts of the border, and in the controversies about the line it eventually took, those are outside the scope of this book.

Likewise if you are not interested in the 'Arthur Question', ie did King Arthur really exist, and how might the roots of the stories about him lie in borders history, you will not enjoy the last third of the book as much as the rest. There are links between the Arthur legends and the Debatable Land, but the Arthurian material is really about trying to solve a different mystery altogether. On the other hand Dr Robb's map-work and expertise on the Celtic era are impressive. An academic historian friend has told me that he draws too many conclusions from sources that are too recent to be reliable, but I found the case he makes pretty convincing.

The final possible drawback, depending on your point of view, is that Dr Robb is very open and passionate about his politics. He makes his opposition to the idea of Scotland regaining her independence crystal clear. As for the 2016 UK referendum on EU membership, he refers to the result as a "catastrophe". This is the same word that the Palestinians use to describe their defeat by the nascent Israeli forces in 1948. Perhaps he would like to see us hold a Catastrophe Day every year, like they do?

Never mind. His book is full of interest and is still a very good read.
3 people found this helpful
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Consumer #1
4.0 out of 5 stars Conveys the atmosphere of a magical place in rich, evocative language
Reviewed in Canada on June 15, 2020
Verified Purchase
Gave it as a gift - was a huge success!
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