Ian Strathcarron follows Mark Twain & his caravanserai as it sways across the Holy Land & the two writers` contrasting adventures & observations are told in Innocence & War. Twain`s pilgrims landed in Beirut & went on to Baalbec & Damascus. They then headed south through the Golan Heights, the Galilee & Nazareth then finally on to Jerusalem, Jericho, the Dead Sea, Bethlehem & Jaffa. Strathcarron follows their exact route though the countries are now Lebanon, Syria, Israel & the West Bank-with diplomatic diversions by sea on the writer`s yacht Vasco da Gama, where needed. Together they meet the tribes & tribulations of the Holy L&, where the religious is political & the political is religious, where natural beauty meets man-made squalor, where hope & despair hang from the same tree & where trouble is always close at h&. Travel was troublesome then & it is troublesome now. Troublemakers & troubleshooters vie for supremacy. Both protagonists suffer for their troubles-and only sometimes laugh it off.