RONALD WRIGHT'S EXPLORATION OF THE FIJI ISLANDS BEGINS IN THE FIJI MUSEUM WHERE A CAPTION IDENTIFIES THE OBJECT DISPLAYED AS THE "FORK USED IN EATING MR BAKER". PERHAPS NOWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD IS THERE A CULTURE THAT HAS COME THROUGH THE COLONIAL EXPERIENCE WITHOUT BEING DEEPLY SCARRED BY IT:IN ONLY A HUNDRED YEARS SINCE THE WESLEYAN MISSIONARY BAKER WAS EATEN BY NATIVES,FIJI HAS BECOME A CIVILIZATION THAT HAS ADAPTED,EVEN EMBRACED WITH 20TH CENTURY. WRIGHT BELIEVES THAT THIS ABSENCE OF TRAUMA IS IN PART DUE TO THE INSULARITY OF THE MANY COEXISTENT BUT INTROVERTED COMMUNITIES THAT EXIST ON THE ISLANDS IN THE FIJI GROUP - THE SEPARATION ALLOWS A "UNITY" THAT IS HARMONIOUS IN COMPARISON TO OTHER COUNTRIES WITH PARALLEL HISTORIES. WRIGHT WILL EXAMINE THIS THEME AND ITS RELATED TOPIC OF THE INSULARITY OF MODERN TRAVELLERS AGAINST THE HISTORICAL,POLITICAL,AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL BACKDROP OF THE FIJI ISLANDS - SEEMINGLY ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST EXOTIC LOCALES. AS IN THE AUTHOR'S HIGHLY-PRAISED "CUT STONES AND CROSSROADS",WRIGHT WILL DRAW THESE STRAINS TOGETHER SKILLFULLY,ALLOWING THE READER BOTH A VIVID PORTRAIT (18/3/87). OF THE ISLANDS AND A RARE EXPOSURE OF THE NUANCES OF A FOREIGN CULTURE.

On Fiji Islands

History

WRIGHT, Ronald

Australia & Oceania

Penguin??Books

The author recounts his travels through the two worlds of Peru--from the remains of the Inca Empire to the emerging modern nation of economic and social pressures

Cut Stones and Crossroads: A Journey in the Two Worlds of Peru (Travel Library)

Travel

South America

Viking Pr

The Maya of Central America have been called the Greeks of the New World. In the first millennium A.D. they created the most intellectually and artistically advanced civilization of the Americas. In ensuing centuries, as neighbouring empires fell in warfare and the Spanish Invasion swept across their continent, the Maya endured, shaken but never destroyed. 
Ronald Wright's journey through time and space takes him to the lands of the ancient Maya, as well as among the five million people who speak Mayan languages and preserve a Mayan identity today. His travels take him to tiny Belize, the jungles and mountains of Guatemala -- bloodstained by a recent civil war -- and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Embracing history, politics, anthropology, and literature, Time among the Maya is both a fascinating travel memoir and the study of a great civilization.

Time Among The Maya

Ancient Civilizations

Penguin Canada

Cut Stones and Crossroads: Journey in the Two Worlds of Peru

When Columbus first landed in the New World there were about a hundred million Americans - a fifth of the human race. Most fell victim to imported epidemics, Christian fanaticism and sheer barbarity. Sophisticated worlds were sacked, great art destroyed, wealth stolen. But did "all" the New World people die, and so fast that they had nothing to say? In fact there is an Indian side to the story, though we have not been told it before. In telling it now, Ronald Wright quotes the actual speech and writing of five peoples - Aztec, Maya, Inca, Cherokee and Iroquois - through five centuries. We can relive their strange, tragic experience and see ourselves, the European invaders, through their shrewd eyes. Unlike Asia and Africa, the New World never saw its colonizers leave. But neither have the ancient nations disappeared. In the Andes, ten million speak the Inca language. If Guatemala had majority rule it would be a Maya republic. In Peru, the murder of Atahuallpa and the bizarre deeds of the Shining Path are parts of the same story; just as Canada's betrayal of the Iroquois led to the Mohawk revolt at Oka in 1990. The story is not over yet.

Stolen Continents 10th Anniversary Edition

Americas

Penguin Group Canada

The Maya of Central America have been called the Greeks of the New World. In the first millennium ad, they created the most intellectually and artistically advanced civilization of the Americas. Throughout the ensuing centuries, as neighbouring empires fell in warfare and to the Spanish invasion, the Maya endured, shaken but never destroyed. 
In Time Among the Maya, Ronald Wright's journey takes him not only to the lands of the ancient Maya, but also among the five million people who speak Mayan languages and preserve a Mayan identity today. His travels begin in tiny Belize, exploring the jungles and mountains of Guatemala, bloodstained by civil war, and end in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. Embracing history, politics, anthropology, and literature, this book is both a fascinating travel memoir and the study of a civilization.

Time Among the Maya

Powerful and passionate, Stolen Continents is a history of the Americas unlike any other. This incisive single-volume report tells the stories of the conquest and survival of five great indigenous cultures—Aztec, Maya, Inca, Cherokee, and Iroquois. Through their eloquent words, we relive their strange, tragic experiences—including, in a new epilogue, incidents that bring us up to the twenty-first century.

Stolen Continents: Conquest And Resistance In The Americas

Cut Stones and Crossroads

The Gold Eaters: A Novel

A sweeping, epic historical novel of exploration and invasion, of conquest and resistance, and of an enduring love that must overcome the destruction of one empire by another. Kidnapped at sea by conquistadors seeking the golden land of Peru, a young Inca boy named Waman is the everyman thrown into extraordinary circumstances. Forced to become Francisco Pizarro's translator, he finds himself caught up in one of history's great clashes of civilizations, the Spanish invasion of the Inca Empire in the 1530s. To survive, he must not only learn political gamesmanship but also discover who he truly is, and in what country and culture he belongs. Only then can he find and be reunited with the love of his life and begin the search for his shattered family, journeying through a land and a time vividly portrayed. Based closely on real events, The Gold Eaters draws on Ronald Wright's imaginative skill as a novelist and his deep knowledge of South America to bring alive an epic struggle that laid the foundations of the modern world.

Literature & Fiction

United States

Traveling through Peru, tracing the history of the Incas from their royal cities of Cusco and Machu Picchu to their mythic origin in Lake Titicaca, Ronald Wright explores a country of contrasts—between Spanish and Indian, past and present, coastal desert and mountainous interior. 
In his highly entertaining and perceptive account, Wright brings to life a complex culture, a land of ancient traditions seeking its place in the modern world. Embracing history, politics, anthropology, and literature, Cut Stones and Crossroads is a fascinating travel memoir and the study of a civilization by a writer who has won international awards as both a novelist and a historian.

Modern Classics Cut Stones and Crossroads: A Journey in the Two Worlds of Peru

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