Peter Baker grew up in East Anglia and read physics at Durham University. After graduating he moved to Asia, working as a science teacher in India and (briefly) as a club singer in Bangkok. On his return to the UK he became a writer for a global insurance consultancy in the West End, while exploring London's intellectual and cultural scene, pursuing interests in evolutionary psychology, economics and history, and beginning the development of his thesis regarding the shape and character of the human adventure. In 2005, he embarked upon the journey recorded in this book, during which his ideas concerning the context of contemporary civilisation became fully formed. Following his return home, he spent a year living in a one-room wooden cabin at the bottom of an apple orchard, while writing and caring for his dying mother. He then moved back to London, took a job in the City and spent two years polishing the manuscript. The Jolly Pilgrim is his first book.