'Borderland deftly combines thorough research and objective analysis with the author's intimate first-hand knowledge of place, as he revisits sites on foot in an extended field trip. Hubbard's unflinchingly questioning approach to the contested spaces he encounters is written with the ease of an armchair traveller's guide. The result is a peregrination peppered with gems of descriptive detail and astute personal reflections. Ultimately, Borderland isn't just about Kent. It's a book that scrutinises how - wherever we live - we perceive, shape, reimagine and reinvent place to suit our own uses and desires.'
Sonia Overall, author of Heavy Time
'It's been called the frayed edge of England, but our coastline is by no means just wearing out. As emerges from this highly revealing excursion around the coast of Kent, it is also being restitched and fortified as the frontline of an exclusionary nationalism thanks to which even insects and oysters are being asked to prove they're not aliens. Although horrifying in places, as the times demand, Borderland is full of contrary energy too.'
Patrick Wright, author of The Sea View Has Me Again: Uwe Johnson in Sheerness
'A timely interrogation of the connection between place and identity in the post-Brexit era. Hubbard's Kentish borderland is an ever-shifting space, rife with contradictions, culture clashes, and eco-anxiety.'
Gareth E. Rees, author of Car Park Life
'With an impressive mix of erudition and accessibility, Phil Hubbard's Borderland shines the light on an English South East that is rarely apprehended - let alone comprehended - by Middle England and the London establishment. Venturing into a Kentish coastal terrain transformed into a new debatable land by Brexit and recurrent migrant crises, Hubbard manages to combine sympathy for the plight of refugees with great sensitivity in exploring wider questions of twenty-first century citizenship, national identity, and political representation. This is a book which asks all the right questions with immense eloquence and remarkable understanding of a people and a place.'
Alex Niven, author of New Model Island
'A brilliant book. Superficially, a story of part of the Kent coast. However, under its surface Borderland, is a search for England's soul - and soullessness.'
Danny Dorling, author of Rule Britannia: Brexit and the End of Empire
'A powerful, poignant and beautifully written journey through the frontier lands of Brexit Britain. This is travel writing with a purpose, charting an anxious and often hostile landscape with care and passion.'
Alastair Bonnett, author of The Age of Islands: In Search of New and Disappearing Islands
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