Tony Wheeler, founder of Lonely Planet, travelled through some of the world’s most repressive & dangerous regimes. Wheeler says, “ When Mr Bush produced his ‘ Axis of Evil’ list, my first thought was ‘I’ve got to go there.’ I’d visited Iran several times & found it to be a beautiful & welcoming country but I’d never managed to make it to North Korea or Iraq. North Korea’s utterly reclusive nature has always fascinated me & I’d had a long interest in the tourist potential of Iraq. So the Evil Axis trio formed the core of my Bad Lands & it was no trouble to come up with a half dozen other contenders.” As he travels to Afghanistan, Albania, Burma (Myanmar), Cuba, Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea & Saudi Arabia, Wheeler considers each country’s attitude to human rights & terrorism, to ask ‘what makes a country truly evil?’ & ‘how bad is bad?’. It’s a timely comment, written in his usual no-nonsense style, making for an absorbing & frank look at life in these countries.