In this fascinating and vivid account, Peter M. Gardner takes us along with him on his anthropological field research trips. Usually, the author’s family is there, too, either with him in the field or somewhere nearby. Family adventures are part of it all. Travel into the unknown can be terrifying yet stimulating, and Gardner describes his own adventures, sharing medical and travel emergencies, magical fights, natural dangers, playful friends, and satisfying scientific discoveries. Along the way, we also learn how Gardner adapted to the isolation he sometimes faced and how he coped with the numerous crises that arose during his travels, including his tiny son’s bout with cholera. Because Gardner’s primary research since 1962 has been with hunter-gatherers, much of his story transpires either in the equatorial jungle of south India or more than one hundred miles beyond the end of the road in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Other ventures transport readers to Japan and back to India, allowing them to savor ancient sights and sounds. Gardner closes the book with a journey of quite another sort, as he takes us into the world of nature, Taoist philosophy, and the experimental treatment of advanced cancer. Throughout this fast-moving book, Gardner deftly describes the goals and techniques of his research, as well as his growing understanding of the cultures to which he was exposed. Few personal accounts of fieldwork describe enough of the research to give a complete sense of the experience in the way this book does. Anyone with an interest in travel and adventure, including the student of anthropology as well as the general reader, will be totally intrigued by Gardner’s story, one of a daily existence so very different from our own.

Describes the marvels of creation as revealed by space probes and the Hubble space telescope.

On February 1st, 2021 tanks appeared on the streets of Burmese cities and the people of Burma are once again involved in a seemingly endless struggle for justice and democracy waged against a brutal military regime. Journeys on the Edge traces the growth of Mobile Education Partnerships, an educational charity built from scratch by teachers, which became an international award-winning organisation. It is, in fact, an adventure on many levels, physical, emotional and spiritual. MEP works with communities ‘on the edge’ many displaced by war, poverty and oppression inside Burma (aka Myanmar) and on the Thai/Burma border. Importantly, this is not a sentimental presentation of ‘victimhood’ but a very candid, sympathetic and human exploration of how an organisation was built in these challenging circumstances. Neither is it a handbook on how to build a charity. It does, however, offer a ground-level guide to anyone who wishes to go down that road. This is a story which provides a fascinating insight into this tragic, violent and at times bizarre world drawing on the lives of those directly involved, the volunteers, the refugees, the migrants, the warlords and those of us searching for something to believe in, in a world where the truth is elusive and the central message of Shakespeare, that nothing is as it appears to be, serves as a warning to all.

The prophet Jeremiah, mourning his people in the city of Zion, spoke of the balm that could heal them. He foresaw the physician and he asked, "Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?" The message of Jesus has been in North America for centuries, yet past history with the first nations of the land has left many native people thinking they have to choose either to be an Indian or to believe in Jesus. Jeremiah said, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." How, then, do we bring the balm of Gilead to the most oppressed group on the continent where women and children are suffering the highest rates of violence? When Jesus forgave a prostitute, when he offered living waters to the woman at the well who had six failed relationships, and when he healed a crippled woman, he showed us how he would build his church from the brokenhearted among all people. Journey to the Edge of the Woods visits women sharing concern over the degradation of our daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends in a world of intensifying confusion of the creation of male and female identities.

This journey in photos and essays takes us beyond the boundaries of the Americas that traditionally define national identity.

From the Back Cover.