Hailed by Alistair Cooke as the 'Flaubert of the jet age', Jan Morris's ability to capture the surface and essence of a place has secured her reputation as a leading contemporary travel writer. In this collection of pieces on places as different as Las Vegas and Bombay, Athens and Shanghai, and Sydney and Aberdeen, she combines observation, history, and politics to produce the passionate and witty essays that prompted Rebecca West to call her 'the best descriptive writer of our times'.