The author, James McDonald, spent 20 years researching this book, and his research has taken him from America to Europe, through Turkey and the Middle East to Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia, and on to India and China - all places where Christianity has taken root at one time or another. A Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society in England, he holds an MSc and an MA from Oxford University and now lives in France where he is researching his next book, on the Cathar religion.