This book brings together the travel writings of the English traveler, journalist, art historian, and author Robert Byron (1905–1941) concerning Russia, India, and Tibet—three nations that, in the early 1930s, stood on the threshold of profound social and cultural change. Arriving in the Soviet Union just as the Stalinist repressions were beginning, Byron immersed himself in the study of ancient Russian painting, while also managing to engage with figures of the avant-garde, most notably the architect Alexey Shchusev and the critic Vladimir Greenberg. From a country that represented the apotheosis of the Industrial Revolution, he traveled through an India gripped by unrest to reach pre-industrial Tibet—a land where the Dalai Lama remained sheltered within his palace, traveling exclusively by palanquin. Byron undertook this journey in search of social models alternative to those of the West, and in an effort to discover "what this world is made of and who inhabits it." The result is an honest, passionate, and visionary eyewitness account of the antagonism between two great cultures, set against the backdrop of the seismic historical upheavals that defined the first half of the 20th century.