Gods of the Stones: Travels in the Middle East

Riordan is a New Zealand journalist and author whose two previous books i have read and enjoyed. In this book, his largest undertaking - in terms of travel and writing, his visits an area of the Middle East comprising Egypt, Jordan, Israel & Palestine, and Syria before Turkey Cyprus and Greece.

The premise of his journey is to follow the route of HV Morton, famed English travel writer who in the 1930s undertook a series of journeys to the great religious an historical sites.

Here was my idea: to follow Morton's footsteps - not too slavishly - through lands stretching in an arc from Egypt round the eastern Mediterranean to Turkey and Southern Greece; through a region that had more historic buildings and ruins, more historic figures and events than any other place in the world. In fact the Middle East was history: it was here that civilisation was born; here that the world's great monotheistic religions arose. But as much as I wanted to see the ancient Middle East, I also wanted to see the modern - which was why Morton's journeys would be my rough compass rather than a set of immutable bearings.