Sir Stamford Raffles is known as a man of the Empire, a reforming colonialist and prodigal adventurer. Yet his brilliant career proved to be brief. What happened? Nigel Barley set out to find the reasons as he travelled, literally and imaginatively, through the lands that Raffles had known almost 200 years earlier: from Malacca to Java, Bali to Singapore. Nigel Barley's book - part biography, part the experiences of a contemporary traveller - brings a modern sensibility to veer on a major historical figure. The author also wrote "Native Land", "A Plague of Caterpillars", "Not a Hazardous Sport" and "The Coast".