The territory is that of the old Ottoman empire, extended to the whole eastern Mediterranean; the time runs from the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt in 1799 to the end of that empire in 1922.

The book proposes the journey as narrative: from the traditional Grand Tour that passes from Rome to Greece, to the journeys towards the places sacred to the three monotheistic religions. The West always represents the East through its own narrators, from Chateaubriand to Victor Hugo, from Gérard de Nerval to Pierre Loti, and draws, paints and records it.