Author Description

Author and cultural critic Jerry Mander and coeditor Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, a leader of the global indigenous peoples movement and chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, have gathered an impressive international roster of contributors to document the momentous collision of worldviews that pits the forces of economic globalization against the Earth's surviving indigenous peoples. Many of the planet's dwindling resources are located on lands inhabited by native communities. This source explores the effect that The World Trade Organization and other global structures have affected these native lands. Paradigm Wars is the first major work to comprehensively illuminate this situation. In firsthand reports by twenty-five indigenous and nonindigenous writers, the book details the devastating impacts of extractive industries and bioprospecting, the degrading of cultural artifacts and languages, even the damage done by some well-meaning conservation groups. The book also highlights how indigenous communities are strongly resisting this onslaught, often with amazing success. Anyone concerned with environmental or social justice will find inspiration in their resistance.