"[This] is a major contribution to our understanding of British interest in, and understanding of, the Middle East between the occupation of Egypt in 1882 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. James Canton deftly probes into ways that travel writing produced during this period was unavoidably caught up and complicit in the twin developments of mass tourism and imperialism. Organized chronologically and thematically, this study reveals a much richer and more complex range of cultural interactions and mutual engagements than the still powerful notion of a clash between civilisations."--