Written under the sign of Eros, builder and destroyer of cities, and prefaced by an epigraph from John Keats, these poems reflect home and antipodes, the critical spirit, and the need for continuity. Departing from Scotland with a battered copy of the civil philosophy that lends the book its punning title, the poet sets off for Europe. Once immersed in the old civilization he, like the Greek philosopher he seeks to emulate, finds himself in the looming shadow of the cities, still looking for human beings.