About
Rory Stewart is Professor in the Practice of International Relations at the London School of Economics, a former UK cabinet minister, diplomat and Member of Parliament for Penrith and the Border. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan, taught at Harvard and Yale, has written six books, and co-presents The Rest Is Politics with Alastair Campbell.
Rory served as UK Secretary of State for International Development, Minister of State for Justice, Minister of State in the Foreign Office and DFID, and Chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee.
After a brief period as an infantry officer, he joined the UK Diplomatic Service, serving in Jakarta, as British representative to Montenegro after the Kosovo crisis, and as coalition Deputy-Governor of two provinces in southern Iraq following the 2003 intervention. He later undertook a two-year walk across Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India and Nepal.
In 2005, he founded the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in Kabul, restoring part of the old city, establishing a clinic, primary school and arts institute, and supporting Afghan crafts. In 2008, he became Ryan Professor of Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. He later served as Brady-Johnson Professor of the Practice of Grand Strategy at Yale and remains associated with Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs.
His books are The Places in Between, Occupational Hazards (published in the US as The Prince of the Marshes), Can Intervention Work?, The Marches, Politics on the Edge: A Memoir from Within, and Middleland: Dispatches from the Borders, published in October 2025.