"I have a compulsion to wander and a compulsion to return--a homing instinct like a migrating bird," Bruce Chatwin wrote in a 24 February 1969 letter to Tom Maschler, his editor at Jonathan Cape. "True nomads have no fixed home as such; they compensate for this by following unalterable paths of migration. If these are upset it is usually by interference from the civilised or semi-civilised half-nomads. The result is chaos." Chatwin considered this conflict between settling and wandering "instincts" to be the central struggle of human existence, epitomized in the story of Cain and Abel. His own profound restlessness suggests the enduring attraction of both instincts. By turns novelist, journalist, tourist, art dealer, and archaeologist, Chatwin traveled the globe over the course of his short lifetime. Known as a travel writer of the exotic and remote, Chatwin nonetheless was concerned deeply with preserving connections to home and past traditions...