Simon Winchester , struck by a sudden need to discover exactly what was left of the British Empire, set out across the globe to visit the far-flung islands that are all that remains of what once made Britain great. He traveled 100, 000 miles back and forth, from Antarctica to the Caribbean, from the Mediterranean to the Far East, to capture a last glint of imperial glory

His adventures in these distant and forgotten ends of the earth make compelling, often funny reading and tell a story most of us had thought was over: a tale of the last outposts in Britain's imperial career and those who keep the flag flying.

Simon Winchester was a geologist at Oxford and worked in Africa and on offshore oil rigs before becoming a full-time globetrotting correspondent and writer. He lives in New York and on a small farm in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, and is the author of New York Times bestsellers The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World , and Krakatoa .