The narrative follows the overland route from European Russia across the Urals and Siberia to China's frontier, interweaving historical accounts of early explorers and Cossack advance with contemporary travel reportage. It describes construction and impact of the great Siberian railway, snapshots of frontier towns and lake regions, journeys by sledge through Transbaikalia, and encounters with nomadic camps, Buddhist lamaseries, and Chinese border towns. Throughout it balances geography, local types and customs, and political history to portray the making of a transcontinental corridor and the cultural and economic changes it brings to peoples and landscapes along the road.