Nowhere do the ancient world and the modern collide so abruptly as in the long-disputed territories of the Holy Land. H. V. Morton's account of the journey he undertook there in the early 1930s dramatically evokes the beauty of Israel's countryside at Galilee and the Dead Sea, the grand austerity of its desert plains and the all-consuming passions, turbulent daily life and deep-rooted mysteries of Jerusalem. Alive with discovery, anecdote and humour, 'In the Steps of the Master' is a superbly evocative guide for any traveller in the Middle East today - the times have changed, but, as Morton says in his preface added in 1962, the essential nature of the sites he visited has not altered. Yet Morton's writing transcends travelogue in its portrayal of the realities of faith in a place where belief is made so concrete, and in its vivid, resonant tale of a very personal pilgrimage.
