For more than 30 years, renowned anthropologist Wade Davis has traveled the globe, studying the mysteries of sacred plants and celebrating the world's traditional cultures. His passion as an ethnobotanist has brought him to the very center of indigenous life in places as remote and diverse as the Canadian Arctic, the deserts of North Africa, the rain forests of Borneo, the mountains of Tibet, and the surreal cultural landscape of Haiti. In Light at the Edge of the World, Davis explores the idea that these distinct cultures represent unique visions of life itself and have much to teach the rest of the world about different ways of living and thinking. As he investigates the dark undercurrents tearing people from their past and propelling them into an uncertain future, Davis reiterates that the threats faced by indigenous cultures endanger and diminish all cultures.

Autorentext

Wade Davis has degrees in anthropology and biology as well as a Ph.D in ethnobotany from Harvard Univesity. He is currently explorer-in-residence at National Geographic. Davis is a popular and critically acclaimed writer whose first book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, has sold over 400,000 copies and is still in print. He lives with his wife and two children in Washington, D.C., and spends the summers in the Stikine wilderness of British Columbia.

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Preface
Chapter One - The Wonder of the Ethnosphere
Chapter Two - The Eyelids of Wolves
Chapter Three - The Forest and the Stars
Chapter Four - The Face of the Gods
Chapter Five - The Last Nomads
Chapter Six - The Land of Snows
Chapter Seven - A Thousand Ways of Being
Acknowledgements