INTRODUCED BY RAJA SHEHADEH

In a world preoccupied by borders, bridges celebrate the possibility of connection

Dr Gavin Francis crosses bridges (both actual and metaphorical) on a journey through more than twenty countries, across four decades of travel, asking what changes in our societies when we build ways to connect with each other.

From Rome's Ponte Sant'Angelo to Brooklyn, Victoria Falls to London, Singapore to Siberia, Francis's tour of bridges around the world demonstrates what the building of bridges has meant to our civilisation, how crossings can enrich our lives, and the price we pay when we tear them down.

'A valuable reminder that the physical environment we build has immense social and cultural consequences'
SARAH MOSS

'Irresistibly engaging'
SCOTSMAN

'Informative, imaginative and hugely enjoyable'
SARA WHEELER

'From the perspective of a Palestinian ... Francis's book on connections between people and countries offers hope'
RAJAH SHEHADEH

Gavin Francis is an award-winning writer and GP. He is the author of four books of non-fiction, including Adventures in Human Being, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and won the Saltire Scottish Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award, and Empire Antarctica, which won Scottish Book of the Year in the SMIT Awards and was shortlisted for both the Ondaatje and Costa Prizes. He has written for the Guardian, The Times, the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. His work is published in twenty languages. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

@gavinfranc | gavinfrancis.com