Lewis Baston’s 'brilliantly ambitious' ode to European borders goes to Hodder Press

Hodder Press has acquired the rights to political analyst Lewis Baston’s history of 29 key borderlines in Europe. Executive publisher Kirty Topiwala pre-empted world English-language rights from Tom Killingbeck at A M Heath.  

Baston has been working on the book for six years, travelling to each of the 29 borders included. Borderlines: A History of Europe, told from the edges will be published in all formats on 6th June 2024. 

Baston journeys along the borders from west to east, examining how the map of our continent has been redrawn over the past century, with varying degrees of success.

Hodder Press said: "To journey to the centre of the story of Europe, Baston takes us right to its edges, bringing to life the fascinating and often bizarre histories of these border zones."  

The blurb reads: “Through these borderlands, Baston explores how places and people heal from the scars left by a Europe of ethnic cleansing and barbed wire fences, and he searches for a better European future – finding it in unexpected places.”  

Baston added: “Borderlines has been a labour of love, the book I always wanted to write. It combines my lifelong interest in the lines we draw on the map with current affairs and the pleasure of travel. Researching Borderlines has taken me to some extraordinary places – from quirky oddities to reminders of terrible human tragedies.”  

Topiwala commented: “I’m very pleased to be publishing this brilliantly ambitious and engaging book, which has given me a whole new way of looking at Europe and some of its most unusual and forgotten corners. It’s also immensely entertaining as Lewis is a wonderful writer and has a sharp eye for quirky or absurd detail.”  

Baston has written on British politics and the electoral landscape for more than 30 years, from polling analysis for the Financial Times to election results analysis for the Guardian. From 2003 to 2010, he was research director for the Electoral Reform Society, and from 2011 to 2015 he was research fellow at Democratic Audit.

He has appeared on various BBC programmes, including as the border expert on Tim Marshall’s recent BBC World Service series “The Compass”.