people have always been attracted northwards
As with the compass needle, so people have always been most powerfully attracted northwards; everyone carries within them their own concept of north. The Idea of North is a study, ranging widely in time and place, of some of the ways in which these ideas have found expression. Offering engaging meditation on solitude, absence and stillness, Davidson shows north to be a goal rather than a destination, a place of revelation that is always somewhere ultimate and austere.