Roundabout to Moscow: An Epicurean Journey

An American in the 1880s wanders through Europe with sharp eyes and a hungry mind, chasing not just sights but flavors, customs, and the peculiar ways different nations see one another. John Bell Bell Bouton is an observant, often wry companion, he savors a Strasbourg foie gras while pondering why the English imagine Russia as some frozen cipher, and he finds their fears and fantasies as interesting as the actual people he meets along his roundabout route to Moscow. His journey takes him through a Europe still adjusting to modernity, where the old certainties of class and empire are wobbling, and an American voice, neither fully insider nor outsider, offers a perspective that feels freshly Independent. The book is both a travel narrative and a quiet argument: that the way we imagine foreign places reveals more about ourselves than about those places. Bouton is curious, sometimes bemused, never boring. For readers who love travel writing with personality, who enjoy watching a sharp mind negotiate the world, this is a splendid detour off the beaten path.