Rory Stewart was a member of the British Parliament for almost a decade. During that time he served as secretary of state for international development, prisons minister, minister for Africa, development minister for the Middle East and Asia, and minister for the environment. He also ran against Boris Johnson for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Earlier in his career he served briefly as an infantry officer and then as a diplomat for the British government in Indonesia, the Balkans and Iraq. He founded and ran the Turquoise Mountain foundation in Afghanistan, was the director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. From 2000 to 2002 he traveled six thousand miles on foot across Asia, including Afghanistan. Stewart has written four books: The Places in Between, The Prince of the Marshes, Can Intervention Work? (coauthor), and The Marches. He is a visiting Fellow at Yale’s Jackson school, hosts The Rest Is Politics podcast with Alastair Campbell and is the president of the nonprofit GiveDirectly.
“One of the best books on politics our era will see . . . A book of
astonishing literary quality.” —Matthew Parris, The TLS
“Stewart’s story of his nine years in Parliament is vastly superior
to the standard windy self-justifications of many ex-politicians.
For a start, he can write. How Not to Be a Politician is
entertaining, fast-paced and easy to read without being
patronizing.” —The Washington Post
“Stewart has written an unsparing and brilliant portrait
of his decade as a lawmaker, culminating in his failed bid to
become prime minister. The lying, incompetence, and treachery he
depicts are all so blatant that the book should be assigned to
bright young things to rid them of any remaining illusions before
they put their name on a ballot.” —Michael Ignatieff, The
Atlantic
“Anyone with the slightest interest in politics should get a copy
of Rory Stewart’s political memoir.” —Dominic Lawson, Daily
Mail
“A brilliant insider portrait of a nation in decline, penned by an
exasperated modern Boswell . . . A superbly readable book . . .
[Stewart] deploys his literary skills in the manner of a superior
assassin . . . After a memoir of such blistering frankness, there
is no way the Conservative party will have Stewart back.
Westminster is poorer without him, a wanderer turned prime minister
manque. The world of ideas and letters is richer.” —Luke Harding,
The Observer
“Rory Stewart [gave] . . . the inescapable impression that he said
things because he genuinely meant them, rather than because a
pollster had told them they would be popular. As a result, he was
entirely unsuited to modern politics . . . A story of . . . how
soul-sappingly difficult it is to get anything done.” —Michael
Deacon, The Sunday Telegraph
“[Stewart] can write, a rare accomplishment in today’s
politicians.” —Richard Coles, The Sunday Times
“Few political memoirs last for long. Rory Stewart’s . . . may be
an exception. Alan Clark’s diaries left behind an indispensable
record of the Thatcher years; Stewart’s memoir is a brilliant
portrait of the Cameron-May-Johnson era. It is likely to
become a classic on a par with Clark’s diaries.” —Gideon Rachman,
The Financial Times
“A personal, sharp exposé of British politics. Stewart, who once
ran to become Britain’s prime minister, recounts his time as a
politician . . . The culture was “inert, depressing, and shallow” .
. . [and] with rapier wit, Stewart skewers many of his pompous,
cynical colleagues. . . A biting, captivating memoir.” —Kirkus
(starred review)
“Stewart is one of the most potent political figures in Britain . .
. the oddball messiah of the centrist tribe. How Not to Be a
Politician is an account of Stewart’s bitter quest through the
sloughs and haunted forests of modern government . . . Disarmingly,
he is in touch with his own absurdities . . . Stewart has the
sensibility of a writer: he is a man of grand dreams and acute
perceptions . . . Almost all will appreciate the book’s
viciousness, eccentricity, wit and intelligence.” —James Marriott,
The Times (London)
“A rallying call for those who think Westminster needs a kick up
its saggy behind.” —The Times (London), “The biggest books of the
autumn”
“[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”
“How Not to be a Politician is one of the most enjoyable and
revelatory political memoirs to appear in ages—beautifully written,
self-mocking but insistently principled. Stewart manages to make a
life in professional politics seem laughable, entirely
indefensible, and yet ennobling. This is a book that will be read
for decades, as a document of its time and as timeless literature.”
—Steve Coll
“How Not to be a Politician offers a ringside view of recent
geopolitics, through the eyes of an insider who simultaneously
manages to maintain a wry distance. The result is a mix of
high-minded (even utopian) idealism combined with gritty (and
sometimes deflating) realism. This book is far more than a
political memoir; it’s an ethnography of the corridors of power, an
honest, hilarious, and sometimes lacerating exposition that
explains why the world is the way it is.” —Akash Kapur, Better to
Have Gone: Love, Death, and the Quest for Utopia
“Rory Stewart’s book is essential reading for our times. In this
age of populism, nostalgic nationalism, and the routine distortion
of truth, Stewart reminds us that politics (and politicians) can
still inspire and change our world. Stewart manages to whisk us
into the antechambers of power and provide a behind-the-scenes look
at politics, in the manner that the best science and medicine books
reveal insiders’ views of those realms. And he leaves us with
optimism, hope, faith, and a genuine desire to engage with
political systems. Like his previous books, this one is also the
chronicle of a journey—and it’s unputdownable’” —Siddharta
Mukerjee
“Brilliantly written, completely gripping, and darkly funny—this is
one of the most devastating insider accounts of Westminster I have
ever read. An instant classic of political memoir, and an absolute
must for anyone who wants to understand how British politics
works—and why it really, really doesn’t. Rory Stewart is deeply
unsparing, including of himself. I have to warn you that this book
contains mind-boggling scenes featuring some of the leading
politicians we’ve been cursed with over the past few years, several
of which were so excruciating I had to read them through my
fingers.” —Marina Hyde
"If you want to know what it’s like—really like—to be a politician,
read Rory Stewart's intense, funny, savage and profound account.
It's the best there is on life inside the modern palaces of
power.” —Michael Ignatieff, author of Fire and Ashes: Success and
Failure in Politics
“Enthralling, appalling and occasionally hilarious.” —Tom
Stoppard
“Within politics and without, Rory Stewart has always worked to
reconcile opposing interests. This powerful memoir counts the costs
as well as measuring the rewards of his efforts, in ways that are
themselves paradoxical: it’s engaged but objective, candid but not
gossipy, and braced with strong conviction while accepting
limitation. It’s hard to imagine anyone better placed to report on
the convulsions of the last twenty-odd years in British politics
(and their effects overseas as well as at home); Rory Stewart has
written a book that breathes life back into the cliché ‘essential
reading’.” —Andrew Motion
“Any combination of insight, humanity, self-awareness and style in
a political memoir is valuable. To achieve them all, as Rory
Stewart has done, is exceptional.” —Rafael
Behr
“At last a politician who can write. In a decade at Westminster,
Rory Stewart worked alongside—indeed for—most of the con-artists
and dimwits of recent governments. The problem is not just one of
personal calibre, however. The book suggests it is the party
political system itself that tends to stifle innovation and
practical change. Opinionated, lucid and thought-provoking.”
—Sebastian Faulks
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