Rory Stewart

What Went Wrong in South Sudan

Don’t Abandon Afghanistan!

Afghanistan: ‘A Shocking Indictment’

Anand Gopal’s ‘No Good Men Among the Living’

Lessons from Afghanistan

Walking with Chatwin

The publication of Bruce Chatwin’s *The Songlines* in 1987 transformed English travel writing; it made it cool. For the previous half century, travel writing seemed to consist either of grim, extended journeys through desolate landscapes or jokes about foreigners. But Chatwin was as attractive as a person as he was as a writer. The *New York Times* review of *The Songlines* ran: “Nearly every writer of my generation in England has wanted, at some point, to be Bruce Chatwin, wanted to be talked about, as he is, with raucous envy; wanted, above all, to have written his books.” I was no exception. Aged twenty, I thought that even his untruths were immensely erudite.

Afghanistan: What Could Work

The Queen of the Quagmire

Iraq: The Question