size of the poison kills. Sorcerors give enough to make the outcast look dead. When the effects wear off, the outcast appears to come back from the dead. These death and near-death experiences aren't seen the same way as in the United States. Instead, they turn the outcasts into freaks as zombies, the living dead. LIGHT AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD carefully follows the author's footsteps in ONE RIVER, RAINFOREST and SHADOWS IN THE SUN. The photography is beautiful, the organization is clear, and the writing is fascinating. Some of what's covered from the many non-industrialized cultures is chilling. So Davis doesn't get into just glorifying non-industrialized people or criticizing industrialized peoples. From anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, he believes in finding balance in our world of opposites. The first pages told me that this approach would lead to a worthwhile read. For Davis tackles the controversial space program. It cost nearly a trillion dollars, just to bring back, in the words of a southeast Asian nomad, a basket of dust. But a small part of that paydirt went into the stunning blood-red crystal in the stained-glass window at the National Cathedral in D.C. There, it reminds us all that it took going to the moon and back to make us change the way we look at things, for all time. Languages do that every day. Traveling the globe requires more than a ticket, a room and a backpack. A traveler unlike a tourist is immersed. Traveling through time and landscapes