Focusing on individuals caught by chance in pivotal times and places, Wilson explores the ways in which seemingly small decisions made during the initial "contact period" between two cultures have had a huge impact on the course of history. More than anything else, The Emperor's Giraffe shows that the consequences of these "contact periods" are still very much with us, in some rather surprising ways. Who could have predicted that the British colonization of the West Indies would come to a symbolic end with the 1950 England-West Indies cricket championship? Who would have guessed that centuries-old European folk tales would make their way to America and be brought back to Europe hundreds of years later in the guise of Disney characters?