If you are a nature photographer and seeking inspiration this is the book to buy. If you are a traveler looking to visit alaska and need to know where to go this is a great book. Incredible photography that is really jaw dropping.

I would reccomend this book without hesitation.

A wonderful educational book for all ages. Although the summary indicates this book is for children 9-12, I used this book for a presentation on the rain forest to children from 5-6 years old. The teacher of the class enjoyed the book so much, she is requesting a copy for her classroom. If anyone is considering a trip to a tropical environment with children, this would be a fabulous book to take along.

Photographs in black and white, as well as color, document the life of some tribes found in the Brazilian Amazon jungle. Tribes such as the Yanomami and Kampa are shown at work and at play in this endangered rain forest. The reader is furnished with images and words that give a glimpse into tribal life in this most important part of the world.

Hilary Dunsterville Branch's guide to Venezuela is the best guide out there in the market. I've just got back from a month backpacking around the country and I wish I'd bought it before I left the States. As it was I was lucky enough to bump into a French couple that gave me their copy in Merida in the Venezuelan Andes. After three days traveling with Branch's book I dumped my Lonely Planet Guide in the trash. Not only does she give you the practical details on off the beaten track beaches like Choroni, Santa Fe and Morrocoy but she gives you the run down on the cheapest places backpackers can stay. The history was good and easy to read. She got me up to the top of Mount Roraima and her section on the Rio Caura is excellent. What can I say. Thanks to this guide I now know that a month isn't long enough to spend in this incredible tropical country. I'm going back again next year and I'll be taking Branch with me.

Montaner has written the best book of the dozens I have read on Castro's Cuba. With humor, dry wit, impeccable research, and a straight-forward writing style, journalist Montaner explains the ideological and personal demons that rule Castro, the origins of the Cuban Revolution, and the 40-plus years of disasters that have befallen the Cuban people since their "liberation." He is unsparing in his criticism of United States ineptitude in handling Castro's Cuba, but recognizes that Castro, and Castro alone, bears ultimate responsibility for Cuba's distress. This is a wonderful book, written for anyone and everyone with curiosity about Cuba, the Cold War, and the nature of modern political evil. I literally could not put the book down, and read it in one sitting.

Although published in 1986, this remains a very informative book on the Vikings and their presence in North America. Wahlgren was a professor of Scandinavian languages, so he adds a very interesting linguistic layer, and uses many Old Norse words to bolster his arguements. He has included a great deal of archaeological evidence to explain the Viking way of life in Greenland and Newfoundland., and also information from the Icelandic sagas regarding Leif Eiriksson's and others' voyages.

Wahlgren explains very well some of the hoaxes and misinterpretations of "evidence" of the Vikings in numerous areas of North America. He delves into the controversy over the Kensington Stone (a stone with a runic inscription found in Minnesota), and with his linguistic background expertly debunks it.

I particularly enjoy Wahlgren's very readable style, full of cute little asides, while remaining scholarly. His personality and wit really shine through.

A friend from Massachusetts was coming to visit us in Virginia and borrowed this book from her local library. It is wonderful. It is clearly written and full of accurate information. We used it a lot both to decide where to go and for reference as questions came up as we travelled. As soon as she left I went immediately to Amazon.com to get a copy of my own. The photographs are beautiful but the information is the best ever. There is a lot to cover in Virginia and this book does it well.

If anyone knows how I can get untouch with Gerald Kingsland email at JeffKingsland@Jdam.com, urgently

Armchair adventurers who love sailing, roughing it through forests, bogs and mountains in strange lands, and meeting new people in brief encounters will love "Voyaging," by Rockwell Kent. The book begins with a shocking confession in the Introduction, and carries the reader through 184 pages of high excitement and magnificent descriptions of one of the most desolate and forsaken places in the world -- the area about Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America.

The book's main characters are (1) Kent, about 50; (2) his mate, a Norwegian of 26 years who started his life by shipping to sea under his father when 14, who after a few months of beatings jumped ship, cursing as he went, apparently never to see his father again; (3) a lifeboat, which Kent bought for $20 and named Kathleen, and with a group of tradesmen modified to include cabin, mast and rigging for sails; (4) the West Wind, which whistled ceaselessly and tossed the little boat about dangerously, and (5) a menagerie of people along the way who extended hospitality, most with loving kindness, a few with malice.

A touching moment came on Bailey Island when Kent asked 20-year-old Margarita García, the name of her three-month-old suckling daughter. The baby has no name because she has not been baptized, Margarita replied. There in that inhospitable land Kent converted a dirty hovel into a cathedral and "baptized" the child, giving her his wife's name Kathleen Kent García. Kent writes that Father García, a murderer who earlier was released from a nearby prison after serving time, said "the ceremony had pleased him particularly as it was in truth the baptism of his child."

Characteristically, Kent illustrates the book well with black-and-white drawings of the stark landscape, and a few portraits of his new acquaintances. He also includes several maps by which the reader may follow the men's attempt to sail around Cape Horn -- an adventure that did not always go according to plan, as the reader will discover. -- Allen Long, Arlington, VA.

This book is an absolute "must read" for anyone interested in human violence. The Waorani were perhaps the most violent people on earth until peace was brokered by missionaries. They were the terror of their neighbors, but they also killed each other; peace may have saved them from self-destruction. The Robarcheks had previously studied the Semai Senoi of Malaysia, who lived in a similar way--by shifting cultivation in tropical rainforest--but were virtually without any violence, ranking as probably the most peaceful of humans. The Robarcheks sought to see why such similar societies (which even raise their children in broadly similar ways) had such extreme differences in violence level. The most important finding was that both groups were menaced by, and afraid of, stronger neighbors. The Waorani could fight back, but could be secure only if they could truly terrorize their stronger enemies; the Semai could only flee, and learned to deal with danger by flight rather than by fight. The two cultures developed many social and psychological mechanisms for reinforcing these differences. The Robarcheks use these examples to reject naive theories that claim humans are violent or aggressive by nature. In fact, human cultures vary enormously in their approaches toward violence, and humans vary their behavior accordingly. Implications for dealing with violence are discussed in the book, and are of obvious importance for the world.