A review by ovenbird_reads
Light at the Edge of the World by Wade Davis

4.0

I've been a fan of Wade Davis for a long time, and this book is a beautiful over-view of his work and perspectives. Fairly succinct essays are accompanied by photography and the whole package has made me want to do a lot of deeper reading into the cultures and ways of living touched on here. If you've ever thought that the loss of the world's languages is no big deal or that it doesn't matter if indigenous cultures are subsumed into our technologically driven "modern" world, then you need to read this book right now. And there's just a lot of unbelievably interesting stuff in here. Did you know that the Inuit can make functional knives out of their own frozen feces? Neither did I. And that's only one of a million ways that they make their frozen landscape work for them instead of against them. Crazy! This book felt like a really fantastic undergraduate lecture. It only scratches the surface of a huge topic, but it's an excellent introduction that doesn't have a dull moment.