Wade Davis
An ethnobotanist who spent decades living with indigenous peoples across the world and documented what is actually lost when a language or culture dies - not diversity as abstraction, but irreplaceable knowledge systems encoded over millennia.
One of the greatest cultural anthropologists of our time, he is the disciple of the ethnobotanist Sir Richard Evan Shultes. His greatest contribution is his work in some of the most pristine tribes all over the world where he tries to translate their millennia old wisdom about Nature, culture and life to a tone deaf modern world.
He makes us realize how completely we have bought into the paradigm of the modern globalized world that we have lost even the means to understand the wisdom that these tribal cultures all around the world display. His work is also poignant since most of the cultures he talks about are on the verge of ethnocide upon their purchase into the modern world and lifestyle. He shows us what happens when a traditional culture dies.
Select Works
- The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) – Investigation of Haitian Vodou and zombification.
- Passage of Darkness (1988) – Ethnographic sequel on Haitian secret societies.
- One River (1996) – Memoir blending Amazonian ethnobotany and personal journey.
- Into the Silence (2011) – Epic history of the 1924 Everest expedition; Samuel Johnson Prize winner.
- The Wayfinders (2009) – Exploration of indigenous knowledge systems worldwide.
- Magdalena: River of Dreams (2020) – Travelogue and cultural history of Colombia’s great river.
- Clouded Leopard (1998) – Photographs and essays on vanishing cultures.
- Light at the Edge of the World (2001) – Visual celebration of cultural diversity.
