The Ragged Edge of the World: Encounters at the Frontier Where Modernity, Wildlands and Indigenous Peoples Mee t

by Eugene Linden

Overview

A pioneering work of environmental journalism that vividly depicts the people, animals and landscapes on the front lines of change's inexorable march.

A species nearing extinction, a tribe losing centuries of knowledge, a tract of forest facing the first incursion of humans-how can we even begin to assess the cost of losing so much of our natural and cultural legacy?

For forty years, environmental journalist and author Eugene Linden has traveled to the very sites where tradition, wildlands and the various forces of modernity collide. In The Ragged Edge of the World, he takes us from pygmy forests to the Antarctic to the world's most pristine rainforest in the Congo to tell the story of the harm taking place-and the successful preservation efforts-in the world's last wild places.

The Ragged Edge of the World is a critical favorite, and was an editors' pick on Oprah.com.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780452297746
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/27/2012
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Eugene Linden is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Parrot’s Lament, The Future in Plain Sight, Silent Partners, and other books on animals and the environment. He has consulted for the U.S. State Department, the UN Development Program, and he is a widely traveled speaker and lecturer. In 2001, Yale University named Linden a Poynter Fellow in recognition of his writing on the environment.  He lives in Nyack, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I War and Peace

Chapter 1 Vietnam 1994 15

Part II Culture Wars

Chapter 2 An Elusive Butterfly in Borneo 25

Chapter 3 New Guinea: The Godsend of Cargo 35

Chapter 4 New Guinea Redux 46

Chapter 5 Polynesia Lost and Found 58

Part III Roads to Ruin

Chapter 6 Rapa Nui: The Other Side of the Story 73

Chapter 7 Bangui, Bayanga and Bouar 79

Chapter 8 Equateur Devolving 91

Part IV Apes at the Brink

Chapter 9 Travels with Jane 109

Chapter 10 Listening to Pygmies 119

Part V The Antipodes: The Long Reach of Humanity

Chapter 11 Unfreezing Time 133

Chapter 12 The Arctic 143

Part VI The Near Wild

Chapter 13 The Wolf at the Door 159

Part VII Survivors

Chapter 14 The Lost Worlds of Cuba 169

Chapter 15 Midway 184

Chapter 16 In the Forests It's Good to Be a Pygmy 197

Part VIII Inner Worlds: Magic, Practical and Otherwise

Chapter 17 Shamans, Healers and Experiences I Can't Explain 217

Chapter 18 Esotéricas 223

Final Thoughts 230

Acknowledgments 247

Index 251

Editorial Reviews

"Thoughtful and compelling." — National Geographic

"Linden is a well-versed guide to complex ecosystems and remote cultures. . . . His recollections are vivid." — The New Yorker

"From Borneo to sub-Saharan Africa . . . firsthand accounts by a veteran environmental journalist." — Oprah.com (18 Books to Watch)

From the Publisher

"From Borneo to sub-Saharan Africa . . . firsthand accounts by a veteran environmental journalist."

Oprah.com (18 Books to Watch)

"Linden is a well-versed guide to complex ecosystems and remote cultures. . . . His recollections are vivid."

The New Yorker

"Thoughtful and compelling."

National Geographic

"From Borneo to sub-Saharan Africa . . . firsthand accounts by a veteran environmental journalist."

-Oprah.com (18 Books to Watch)

"Linden is a well-versed guide to complex ecosystems and remote cultures. . . . His recollections are vivid."

-The New Yorker

"Thoughtful and compelling."

-National Geographic