Editors Reads Verdict
The central book in Macfarlane's landscape trilogy — where Mountains of the Mind examined the sublime and The Wild Places sought wilderness, The Old Ways is most interested in the relationship between landscape and human movement over deep time. The prose is at its most assured here.
What We Loved
- The prose is genuinely beautiful — Macfarlane is among the best stylists in contemporary British non-fiction
- The Palestinian section adds a political dimension that sharpens the book's questions about who owns the right to walk a landscape
- The depth of research into landscape history is impressive and worn lightly
Minor Drawbacks
- The prose density can feel performative in places — occasional moments of self-consciousness
- The book is long — some paths are less compelling than others
Key Takeaways
- → Ancient paths are not just physical routes — they are records of human movement over thousands of years, written into the land
- → Walking a path is a form of thinking — the rhythm of the body in motion produces a different kind of attention
- → Landscapes are not passive — they shape the people who inhabit and traverse them
| Author | Robert Macfarlane |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Viking |
| Pages | 390 |
| Published | January 1, 2012 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Non-Fiction, Travel, Nature Writing |
| Difficulty | Intermediate |
| Best For | Readers of literary nature writing and travel writing — anyone interested in the relationship between landscape, walking, and thought. |
On Foot Across the World
Robert Macfarlane walks. In this book he walks ancient paths — the Icknield Way across southern England, pilgrimage routes in the Spanish and Himalayan landscapes, sea-roads through the Outer Hebrides, and — most strikingly — paths through Palestine, where the right to walk is not abstract but contested.
The book asks what happens to the mind when it follows a path that has been walked for centuries or millennia. Macfarlane’s answer, developed through the accumulation of specific landscapes and specific walks, is that old paths carry something — a residue of all the movement that has passed along them. Walking them is a form of communion with deep time.
The Prose
Macfarlane’s prose has been criticised for its lexical richness — he is not shy of unusual words, of archaic English, of Gaelic and Welsh borrowings. The Old Ways is the book that best earns the style because the subject demands it: ordinary English vocabulary has not accumulated the patina that landscape has.
Our rating: 4.3/5 — The best of Macfarlane’s trilogy — walking, landscape, and time handled with literary precision.
Reading Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "The Old Ways" about?
Macfarlane follows ancient paths on foot — the Icknield Way, pilgrimage routes in the Himalayas, sea-roads in the Outer Hebrides, paths through Palestine. A meditation on what walking old routes does to the mind and body, and what landscapes remember.
Who should read "The Old Ways"?
Readers of literary nature writing and travel writing — anyone interested in the relationship between landscape, walking, and thought.
What are the key takeaways from "The Old Ways"?
Ancient paths are not just physical routes — they are records of human movement over thousands of years, written into the land Walking a path is a form of thinking — the rhythm of the body in motion produces a different kind of attention Landscapes are not passive — they shape the people who inhabit and traverse them
Is "The Old Ways" worth reading?
The central book in Macfarlane's landscape trilogy — where Mountains of the Mind examined the sublime and The Wild Places sought wilderness, The Old Ways is most interested in the relationship between landscape and human movement over deep time. The prose is at its most assured here.
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