In her essay “The Spirit of the Rillito,” Ruxandra Guidi looks at how Indigenous worldviews can help us understand the world we live in. The piece in High Country News grew out of conversations at the Religion and Environment Story Project, a fellowship that trains journalists and scholars interested in the intersection of the environment and religion.
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Back to the Garden
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Back to the Garden
Alan Weisman reconsiders the Genesis story in the light of what we now know came after it. His essay originally appeared in the 2018 book “Eden Turned on Its Side” by photographer Meridel Rubenstein.
Triptych: Ehmad and His Boat in the Central Marshes. Photo by Meridel Rubenstein, from Eden Turned on Its Side. By Alan Weisman
This essay originally appeared in Eden Turned on Its Side, by photographer Meridel Rubenstein, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Art Museum/University of New Mexico Press, 2018.
We are stardust,
billion-year-old carbon.
We are golden,
caught in the devil’s bargain.
And we’ve got to get ourselves
back to the garden.—Joni Mitchell, Woodstock, 1969
Everyone knows which garden she meant. Something in us yearns to go back there. But could we, somehow? And to what, exactly, would we be returning?
To anyone whose cultural roots are entwined with a certain mystical history emanating from the Middle East, the Garden of Eden evokes either a carefree time before sin appeared, or a pristine, untainted planet—or possibly both, if you believe that the twenty-first century’s eco-perils stem from our sins against nature. But whichever it may be, it hearkens to a time before any of us was alive—yet one for which we oddly feel a visceral nostalgia.
That gut longing is even stranger, given that our notion of Eden comes not from experience, but from a book—in fact, from one of its most problematic passages. The Judeo-Christian Bible begins, logically enough, with God creating the world. Within six days, there are stars overhead, sun by day, moonlight by night, seas and sea creatures, land, plants, land animals, and finally people, both male and female. It’s a world we’d basically recognize, other than that it is entirely vegetarian: fruit, seeds, and green herbs shall be for meat, God tells humans and beasts alike.
All of that is described in Chapter 1—where, incidentally, there’s no mention of any garden: the entire Earth is bountifully blessed. But in Chapter 2, after the seventh day when God rests, logic begins to unravel.
Suddenly, the whole story starts over from scratch. This time, there’s no workweek plus a Sabbath; instead, God conjures up Heaven and Earth in a single day. And the sequence changes: again, he invents plants early on, but he sets them aside in some celestial nursery because, unlike before, he hasn’t created water yet. Next, he does so—then, just as the soil begins to moisten, he selects some dust to mold into a human being. A male.
Only after breathing life up man’s nostrils does God add the foliage—but this time, it’s to a garden. However gorgeous and fertile it might be, Eden isn’t all bliss and leisure. Here, God intends for man to “dress,” “keep,” and “till the ground.” He sets guidelines about what can or can’t be harvested, designates a network of rivers for irrigation, and finally, lest man be lonely, creates animals.
Adam gets to name these animals and to identify which are domestic and which are wildlife, yet they fail to assuage his solitude. So, borrowing one of his ribs, God clones him a more tempting companion. And you know the rest.
Much has been made by Biblical scholars of these two conflicting, coexisting creation tales. As their syntax and even their names for God differ (Elohim in Chapter 1; Yahweh in Chapter 2), it’s widely assumed that they were written at different times by different authors, drawing on different versions of earlier Assyrian and Sumerian legends that were later conflated, often awkwardly, into a single testament by anointed redactors, who thrashed out what was canonical and what wasn’t.
Small wonder religion breeds so much discord. To literalists who claim that the Bible is divinely inspired and thus entirely true, the second chapter simply details Chapter 1’s sixth day when man appears, to underscore God’s special relationship with us. (Thus, presumably, it’s more fitting that humans should precede the flora and fauna over which they hold dominion.)
Babylonian Talmudists tried reconciling another notable discrepancy, over whether woman was born simultaneously with man or later ripped from his rib cage like a bloody afterthought, by declaring that both were true. Appropriating a Sumerian legend of a she-demon, they concluded that Chapter 1’s female was Adam’s rebellious first wife, Lilith, who disdained his authority and abandoned him. In Chapter 2, God tries to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. The woman fashioned from Adam’s own bone is merely his “help meet”—so subservient she doesn’t even get a proper name until after she also proves too disobedient and seductive to control and gets them booted from the garden.
And us, too, so the tale goes—but that may well be why both creation myths are included in Genesis. Taken together, they reflect an evolutionary truth sensed by whoever compiled the Bible from collective memories inherited through their forebears’ stories and perhaps even through their cells and genes. In one version, we had the whole Earth’s bounty to pluck for our nourishment. (Archeology, littered with spear points, choppers, and blades, belies the vegetarianism, which probably seeped into the account much later, during the time of Isaiah: an ardent herbivore who condemned animal sacrifice and who prophesized a post-Messianic paradise where wolves would dwell among lambs and leopards lie peacefully with kids.)
But in version two, we are no longer hunter-gatherers. We’re stewards of orchards, tillers of soil, and pastoralists of the cattle that Adam named. Thus was born agriculture. Yet by giving us a garden, was the Lord setting us up for a Fall?
To grow, conveniently close at hand, food that we once roamed hither and yon to scrounge might have seemed to our ancestors an astonishing improvement over what Chapter 1’s God—or gods, or Mother Nature—had originally given us. But since a few farmers and herdsmen can feed many, the concentration of sustenance eventually led to concentrations of people. Soon our increasing numbers had to seek more fields and pastures, but they found that the greater world wasn’t all an oasis like Eden. Before long, as Genesis recounts repeatedly, people were warring over the choicest lands, and especially over water. This has not abated.
What Genesis doesn’t mention, of course, is that we were fighting long before we were human: Our chimpanzee cousins have never traded foraging in trees for working the soil, but they battle for territory anyhow, as our common primate ancestors also surely did. What sets us apart from them, however, is what else agriculture ignited.
Once farming and grazing were established, for the first time in our or any species’ history, a significant portion of the population didn’t have to spend all day finding food. Gradually people devised new things to do for a living: from artisanship to architecture to trade, from prostitution to priesthood. Soon many of us lived farther from crops and livestock and nearer to each other, in settlements, then villages, then cities. Whatever grief early urban dwellers might have sustained for some fabled, lost Edenic profusion gave way to the thrill of something entirely new: civilization.
A New Adam and Eve in the South Iraqi Marshes. Photo by Meridel Rubinstein from Eden Turned on Its Side. Long before that happened, successive waves of Homo sapiens had begun dispersing from our African origins. By fifty thousand years ago, we had spread all the way to Australia—and, by about fourteen thousand years ago, to the Americas. As a result, civilization emerged independently in several places. Among the first to appear was likely the one in the fertile crescent that our prehistoric ancestors followed from Africa into Asia. As we continue to learn about it, it turns out that Eden may be more than just a metaphor.
Genesis locates the Garden of Eden quite precisely, near the confluence of four rivers: the Tigris and Euphrates—whose joint Mesopotamian valley is often called civilization’s cradle—and the Gihon and Pison. The 1611 English-language King James Bible placed the Gihon across the Red Sea in Ethiopia, rather far from Mesopotamia. But several modern scholars believe that its translators confused Ethiopia’s ancient name, Cush, with a similar Hebrew name for the land of the Kashshites, who lived in what is now Iran’s Zagros Mountains. From there a substantial river, the Karun, flows southward, reaching a delta just above the Persian Gulf at a point almost directly opposite Saudi Arabia and Kuwait’s north-flowing Wadi Al-Batin.
That point is sixty miles below where the Tigris and Euphrates meet today, but back then—as noted by archaeologists who contend that the Karun and Wadi Al-Batin are the Bible’s Gihon and Pison—local topography was far different.
Until about eleven thousand years ago, repeated Pleistocene glaciations locked much of the world’s water into ice sheets, and oceans were hundreds of feet lower than today. When the first Homo sapiens reached the Persian Gulf, its upper third was well above sea level. British archaeologist Jeffrey Rose calls it the Gulf Oasis: a luxuriant delta, continuously fed by nutrient-rich sediments borne by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun, and Wadi Al-Batin.
For hunter-gatherers, it would have been a paradise. But post-Pleistocene warming, which allowed their descendants to learn how to farm local wild wheat and legumes, also meant that to the north, vast glaciers were melting. As the thawing accelerated, worldwide coastal flooding commenced. At its peak, eight thousand years ago, Persian Gulf waters were encroaching so fast, according to American archaeologist and Middle East specialist Juris Zarins, that with each generation they advanced several kilometers farther inland. By the time civilization awakened in its cradle a millennium later, paradise had been lost beneath rising seas.
Fall and flood: memories passed from prehistoric ancestors to Mesopotamia’s Sumerians, Assyrians, Akkadians, and Babylonians, who passed them on to the Hebrews, and to us. Today, the last traces we have of the oasis that inspired them are some lush wetlands in Iraq’s Tigris-Euphrates floodplain, upstream of that now-submerged Eden. During the 1990s these rare marshes were also nearly lost, when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein tried to drain them to expel Shia rebels. But following his ousting, a courageous local and international effort has recovered almost half of them.
Staunching that ecological disaster is one of the few encouraging stories from that tortured region in recent years—but unless we act decisively, it could prove in vain, as ice is melting again. In an elaborate, circuitous lineage that humanity has confected, agriculture begat civilization, which begat industrialization, which inevitably—some might say incestuously—begat industrialized agriculture. Force-feeding soil with chemical fertilizer, and genetically developing hybrid grains with many extra kernels per stalk, we multiplied our foodstuffs far beyond what nature ever could supply. But unintentionally this unprecedented abundance also multiplied ourselves.
Averting famine means more people live to beget more people. And so human numbers quadrupled during the past century—the most abnormal population leap for any large species in the history of biology. With all of us hooked on energy, the exhaust from our swollen industrial civilization keeps turning up the heat, forcing seawater up river deltas and over coastlines. If the result of Adam and Eve’s original sin was procreation, here we are again, headed for another fall.
Pushed to this modern brink, more than ever we long to reclaim the fresh hope of Eden. Yet lest we despair, it’s comforting to realize that one day this Earth will surely see Eden restored.
Should our yearning help us muster the environmental wisdom and the will to act upon it, we’ll do whatever it takes to bring humans back into balance with the rest of nature.
Or, should we fail, we’ll drag many more species and much priceless Earthly beauty down with us. But not forever. This planet has endured enormous losses and massive extinctions before, from cataclysmic volcanic eruptions to colliding asteroids—yet each time, life, miraculously resilient, has rebounded, lovelier than ever. As it will again.
One way or another, we’ll be there too. Either we’ll have survived our excesses, and, like Noah, saved enough animals to give our own species another chance—or, like Adam, we will have returned to the dust from which we sprang.
Copyright Alan Weisman 2018
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The Homelands Blog
Trump’s false narrative of chaos
In her latest commentary for High Country News, Ruxandra Guidi writes how the U.S.-Mexico border has become a stage for political theater, and why the Trump administration’s “deterrence” tactic against undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers is cruel and inhumane. …
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The Homelands Blog
Going Gray in LA Exhibit at LA’s Central Library
The traveling photo exhibit from Ruxandra Guidi and Bear Guerra’s year-long, multi-platform exploration of the lives of older adults in the heart of Los Angeles will open on Friday, October 6th, 2017 at the city’s …
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The Homelands Blog
Big plans for Big Oil
Sandy Tolan made five trips to North Dakota this past fall and winter to document the standoff between opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the pipeline’s supporters in government and business. As he reported on …
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The Homelands Blog
Going Gray in LA event
On April 9th, Bear and Rux’s year-long collaboration with LA’s KCRW – Going Gray in LA: Stories of Aging Along Broadway – will have a culminating event in Los Angeles that’s free and open to the …
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The Homelands Blog
Life in Oil
Last year, Homelands’ Bear Guerra spent two weeks in the Ecuadorian Amazon making images to accompany anthropologist Mike Cepek’s upcoming ethnography about the impacts that oil has had on the life of the indigenous Cofán. The …
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The Homelands Blog
Tension rises between protesters and tribes
Sandy Tolan has returned to North Dakota to report on the status of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in the aftermath of the presidential order instructing the Army Corps of Engineers to expedite the approval of construction permits. …
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The Homelands Blog
At Standing Rock, apologies, tears, and forgiveness
At a time when so much of the nation is divided by politics and ideology, the protest against the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota forged an unlikely coalition of veterans, Native Americans, and environmentalists who …
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The Homelands Blog
What’s next for the pipeline?
In his latest story from North Dakota for the Los Angeles Times, Sandy Tolan asks what we can expect now that the Army Corps of Engineers has declined to approve a permit that Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the Dakota …
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The Homelands Blog
Update: Police oust pipeline protesters
Sandy Tolan was in North Dakota today as police and National Guard troops marched in to break up the protest over the proposed Dakota Access oil pipeline. He writes: “The protesters faced down the advancing forces with …
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The Homelands Blog
Standing with the Standing Rock Sioux
Sandy Tolan is headed back to North Dakota, where he recently covered the protests by members of the Standing Rock Sioux and their supporters against the proposed 1,172-mile Dakota Access oil pipeline. In his October 18 story in Salon.com, Sandy describes the tense …
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The Homelands Blog
KCRW launches “Going Gray in LA”
One of Los Angeles’ NPR affiliates, KCRW, has launched Bear and Rux’s year-long multi-platform project about aging in the city’s working-class and immigrant neighborhoods. “Going Gray in LA: Stories of Aging along Broadway” is part …
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The Homelands Blog
Bear Guerra wins photo award
The photo above, from a 2015 story by Bear Guerra and Ruxandra Guidi published in Americas Quarterly, has won a prestigious American Photography award. The piece, “Indigenous Residents of Lima’s Cantagallo Shantytown Confront an Uncertain Future,” describes how …
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The Homelands Blog
Photo File: The Other Barca
Our Bear Guerra recently spent two days with Ecuador’s most popular soccer team as part of an article and photo spread in today’s New York Times. There are 12 photos in all. Freelancer Noah Schumer wrote …
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The Homelands Blog
Book Explores Middle East Through Micro Lens
In a wide-ranging review of recent books on the Middle East, essayist N.S. Morris lauds Sandy Tolan’s Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land for its intimacy and freshness. “Tolan exhibits novelistic …
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The Homelands Blog
Children of the Stone Makes Booklist Top Ten
Sandy Tolan‘s Children of the Stone has been named one of Booklist‘s Top 10 Art Books of 2015. The news was published in the magazine’s November 1, 2015, issue on the arts. Reviewer Donna Seaman wrote: “Tolan illuminates …
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The Homelands Blog
Alan Weisman on South American speaking tour
Homelands’ co-founder and senior producer Alan Weisman is spending nearly a month in Colombia and Ecuador giving talks and interviews about his two most recent books, The World Without Us and Countdown.
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Special Projects
Stand-alones, one-offs, books, and other work from members of the Homelands collective.
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The Homelands Blog
Music as armor, statement, and salve
Music, occupation, hope, despair, healing, and the terrible weight of history are all the subjects of Sandy Tolan‘s rapturously reviewed new book, Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land. While you …
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The Homelands Blog
Passion and theater in the streets of Quito
This year’s Semana Santa, or Holy Week, brought thousands into churches and out on the streets of Ecuador, where an estimated 80 percent of people identify as Catholic. Homelands’ Bear Guerra was there to document the festivities in Quito’s historic …
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Sandy Tolan
Special Projects
Children of the Stone
Sandy Tolan
Special Projects
Children of the Stone
Sandy Tolan’s book about freedom and conflict, determination and vision, and the potential of music to help children everywhere see new possibilities for their lives.
It is an unlikely story. Ramzi Hussein Aburedwan, a child from a Palestinian refugee camp, confronts an occupying army, gets an education, masters an instrument, dreams of something much bigger than himself, and then, through his charisma and persistence, inspires scores of others to work with him to make that dream real. The dream: a school to transform the lives of thousands of children – as Ramzi’s life was transformed – through music.
Musicians from all over the world come to help. A violist leaves the London Symphony Orchestra to work with Ramzi at his new school, Al Kamandjati. An aspiring British opera singer moves to the West Bank to teach voice lessons. Daniel Barenboim, the eminent Israeli conductor, invites Ramzi to join the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which he founded with the late Palestinian intellectual, Edward Said.“Ramzi has transformed not only his life, his destiny, but that of many other people,” Barenboim says. “This is an extraordinary collection of children from all over Palestine that have all been inspired and opened to the beauty of life.”
In Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land, Homelands co-founder Sandy Tolan chronicles Ramzi’s journey – from stone thrower to music student to school founder – and shows how, through his love of music, he created something lasting and beautiful in a land torn by violence and war.
This is a story about the power of music, but also about freedom and conflict, determination and vision. It’s a vivid portrait of life amid checkpoints and military occupation, a growing movement of nonviolent resistance, the prospects of musical collaboration across the Israeli-Palestinian divide, and the potential of music to help children everywhere see new possibilities for their lives.
For book tour information, articles, excerpts, and other resources, visit Sandy’s author page on Facebook or his blog, Ramallah Cafe.
Reviews
“Eye-opening… Tolan’s exhaustive research and journalistic attention to detail shine through every page of this sweeping chronicle.” – Publishers Weekly
“[Tolan] portrays the multigenerational Israeli-Palestinian conflict by focusing on the life and musical abilities of one youngster, Ramzi Hussein Aburedwan, and his family and friends… This is an engrossing and powerful story, moving skillfully amid the failure of the never-ending battles and ‘peace’ talks between Israel and Palestine and the determination of one brave young man to change his world.” – starred review, Booklist
“A resolute, heart-rending story of real change and possibility in the Palestinian-Israeli impasse.” – Kirkus Reviews
“A non-fiction account that reflects one individual’s belief in the power of music and culture to transform lives. His story is proof of the famous words of Margaret Mead – ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.’” – Yo-Yo Ma
“Somewhere amidst the separation barriers and the countless checkpoints, the refugee camps and the demolished homes, the fruitless negotiations and endless conflict, there is a people yearning for a life of dignity and normalcy. You won’t see them on TV or in many newspapers. But you will find them in The Children of Stone, Sandy Tolan’s moving account of the dispossessed children of Palestine, and the transformative power that music has had in giving them meaning and reason for hope.” – Reza Aslan, author of No God But God and #1 New York Times bestseller Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
“Children of the Stone is alive with compassion, hope, and great inspiration. It is not necessary to believe in music’s power to defeat evil in order to be enchanted by this wonderful story.” – Tom Segev, Israeli historian and author of One Palestine, Complete
“Sandy Tolan’s narrative artistry fuses the coming of age of a talented, ambitious, and fiercely dedicated musician with the story of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories conquered in 1967. A major contribution to our understanding of who they are and essential to a political resolution of the conflict.” – Joel Benin, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Stanford University
“Sandy Tolan has produced another gem on what is happening under the surface in Palestine. The book contains enthralling biographical trajectories of ordinary people fighting against the odds. Written in the style of investigative journalism, the book is riveting and uplifting, without skirting issues of contestation and controversy.” – Salim Tamari, Professor of Sociology, Bir Zeit University (West Bank), and author of Year of the Locust
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The Homelands Blog
Praise rolls in for Sandy Tolan’s new book
Sandy Tolan’s new book, Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land will be published in April by Bloomsbury USA. Sandy will launch the book on April 21 at the Los Angeles Public Library, then head out on …
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The Homelands Blog
Big year coming (you can help!)
Before we say goodbye to 2014 we thought we’d give you a sneak peek at what we’re cooking up for the year to come. If you feel it’s worth supporting, far be it from us to stand …
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The Homelands Blog
Welcome to The SEAMS
We were closely watching the Kickstarter campaign for “The SEAMS,” a new podcast and radio series probing the history, culture, class, gender politics, and other deeper meanings hidden in the folds of clothing and fashion. …
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Alan Weisman
Special Projects
Countdown
Alan Weisman
Special Projects
Countdown
In this monumental piece of reporting, Alan Weisman travels to more than 20 countries, beginning in Israel and Palestine and ending in Iran, on an urgent search for ways to restore the balance between our species’ population and our planet’s capacity to sustain us.
In his bestselling book The World Without Us, Homelands co-founder Alan Weisman considered how the Earth could heal and even refill empty niches if relieved of humanity’s constant pressures. Behind that groundbreaking thought experiment was his hope that we would be inspired to find a way to add humans back to this vision of a restored, healthy planet – only in harmony, not mortal combat, with the rest of nature.With a million more of us every 4½ days on a planet that’s not getting any bigger, prospects for a sustainable human future seem ever more in doubt. For this long awaited follow-up book, Weisman traveled to more than 20 countries to ask what experts agreed were the probably the most important questions on Earth – and also the hardest: How many humans can the planet hold without capsizing? How robust must the Earth’s ecosystem be to assure our continued existence? Can we know which other species are essential to our survival? And, how might we actually arrive at a stable, optimum population, and design an economy to allow genuine prosperity without endless growth?
By vividly detailing the burgeoning effects of our cumulative existence, Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? reveals what may be the fastest, most acceptable, practical, and affordable way of returning our planet and our presence on it to balance. The result is a landmark work of reporting: devastating, urgent, and, ultimately, deeply hopeful.
Countdown was the winner of the 2014 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for science writing, the 2013 Paris Book Festival Prize for nonfiction, the 2014 Nautilus Gold Book Award, and the Population Institute’s 2014 Global Media Award for best book. It was a finalist for the Orion Prize and the Books for a Better Life Award.
Reviews
“[Countdown] details the burgeoning effects that human population growth has on our environment. Weisman reveals what may be the fastest, most acceptable way of balancing this impact.” – Mother Earth News
“Alan Weisman’s comprehensive and wide-ranging Countdown is the best, most important book on this vital topic in years and demands to be read by all.” – Edd Doerr, Secular Humanist
“[Countdown] takes the reader on an exploratory global tour with Weisman to see how different cultures, religions, nationalities and tribes view childbearing and population growth and how they are coping with increasing strains on cropland, water supply, biodiversity and public health… I’d recommend it to teachers, students, or anyone looking to learn more about our rapidly growing world while enjoying a page-turner with a diverse cast of characters.” – Population Education
“Please read this book. Take your time. You will weep and yet be cheered. As Alan said when he was here in Minneapolis, ‘there are saints out there’ so let’s support what they are doing and gain a little grace, each one of us.” – Louise Erdrich
“Alan Weisman’s Countdown is rich, subtle and elaborate. His magisterial work should be the first port of call for anyone interested in the relationship between population and the environment… It’s a tightly argued, fast-paced adventure that crosses the planet in search of contrasts.” – Literary Review
“His gift as a writer with a love of science is in drawing links for readers on how everything in our world is connected – in this case, population, consumption and the environment…The pleasure in reading Countdown is in the interplay of interviews with experts and with everyday working people around the world, all trying to figure out the size of family they want. Even the experts reveal themselves as a humane and committed lot.” – The Toronto Star
“Countdown is a gripping narrative by a fair-minded investigative journalist who interviewed dozens of scientists and experts in various fields in 21 countries. “ – Wall Street Journal
“Weisman makes a powerful case that the best way to manage the global population is by empowering women, through both education and access to contraception – so that they can make more informed choices about family size and the kind of lives they want for themselves and their children.” – Mother Jones
“He makes a strong case for slowing global population growth – and even for reducing overall population numbers – as a prerequisite for achieving a sustainable future…. Weisman’s emphasis on expanding access to contraception as the next-best strategy is both pragmatic and workable, as past efforts have shown. It is to be hoped that his message may be heeded sooner rather than later.” – Nature
“If, as Weisman posits, population growth is inextricably linked in today’s world with national security, what’s the solution? One answer on offer is through family planning development initiatives and women’s empowerment.” – US News and World Report
“A must read for all those who are concerned about the human prospect.” – The Huffington Post
“Spirited descriptions, a firm grasp of complex material, and a bomb defuser’s steady precision make for a riveting read…. Weisman’s cogent and forthright global inquiry, a major work, delineates how education, women’s equality, and family planning can curb poverty, thirst, hunger, and environmental destruction. Rigorous and provoking.” – Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
“This is not a jeremiad but a realistic, vividly detailed exploration of the greatest problem facing our species.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Provocative and sobering, this vividly reported book raises profound concerns about our future.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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Jonathan Miller
Food for 9 Billion
Alt Meat Lunch
Jonathan Miller
Food for 9 Billion
Alt Meat Lunch
As global demand for animal protein surges, so do the environmental costs of producing it. Researchers in the Netherlands are exploring alternatives, from lab-grown burgers to edible insects to faux meat made from plants. But will people eat them?
Stir-fried vegetables with mealworms. Photo by Jonathan Miller. As global demand for animal protein surges, so do the environmental costs of producing it. Researchers in the Netherlands are exploring alternatives, from lab-grown burgers to edible insects to faux meat made from plants. But will people eat them?
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Sam Eaton
Food for 9 Billion
Alt Staple Lunch
Sam Eaton
Food for 9 Billion
Alt Staple Lunch
Amaranth virtually disappeared from Mexican diets after the Spanish banned it because of its use in human sacrifice rituals. Now there are efforts to bring it back for its superior nutritional qualities and its hardiness in the face of climate change.
Amaranth seedlings being grown in southern Mexico’s Tehuacan valley. The plant’s seeds are high in protein and its leaves are high in iron, vitamin C, and calcium. Photo by Sam Eaton. Amaranth virtually disappeared from Mexican diets after the Spanish banned it because of its use in human sacrifice rituals. Now there are efforts to bring it back for its superior nutritional qualities and its hardiness in the face of climate change.
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Jonathan Miller
Food for 9 Billion
Greece’s Diet Crisis
Jonathan Miller
Food for 9 Billion
Greece’s Diet Crisis
The traditional diet on the island of Crete is one of the healthiest in the world. Trouble is, almost nobody follows it any more. And obesity rates are soaring, especially among kids.
The UN estimates that more than 10 percent of the world’s population is chronically malnourished. Yet the number of overweight people is even higher. Over the last 30 years, the global obesity rate has doubled.
To find out why, I traveled to the island of Crete, in southern Greece. Since the 1950s, study after study has shown that the Mediterranean diet, and especially the diet of Crete, makes you live longer, protects you from heart disease and cancer, and keeps you from getting too fat. Look at lists of the world’s healthiest diets, and the one from Crete often ranks at the top.
Today, most Cretans shop at supermarkets, where processed foods predominate. Photo by Jonathan Miller. Unfortunately, hardly anybody follows it anymore.
I met a 16-year-old I’ll call Eleni with her mother in Chania, a port city of about 50,000 in western Crete. Eleni’s grandparents lived in the countryside, but she and her parents grew up in town.
Eleni has struggled with her weight most of her life. Schoolmates have taunted her. Her mother told me she tries to lose weight, but then she lapses.
“Sometime she eats a lot,” she said. “Whatever you can imagine. But other times she’s okay. I don’t know. That’s the problem.”
She thinks her daughter’s weight issues have to do with lack of discipline and low self-esteem. But clearly there’s something bigger going on. Today Greece has the one of the highest obesity rates in the world. The proportion of overweight children – about 40 percent – may be the highest, except for some Pacific islands. The problem is especially bad in Crete, home to what could be the world’s healthiest diet. What gives?
Crete is one of Greece’s most productive farming areas. Fresh produce is readily available, but it tends to be more expensive than processed food. Photo by Jonathan Miller. “It has to do with many factors,” said Christina Makratzaki, a local dietitian who also battled obesity as a teenager.
“In the ’50s and ’60s, the people, they were poor, but they were healthy,” she explained. “They were eating very good foods – the olive oil, the olives, the green leafy vegetables that are our treasure. But they were enforced in a way because of their poverty to use these things.”
Then people here got a little money – from tourism, from agriculture – and everything changed.
“Now, we have many choices,” she said.
Like processed food from the supermarket and fast food on the street. And soda and doughnuts and ice cream. All of it cheaper to buy, easier to prepare – and, especially for children, harder to resist – than what grandma used to make. And then there’s the marketing – a relentless bombardment of ads aimed at kids for products like soft drinks and breakfast cereal and processed meat.
It’s all part of what’s known as “the nutrition transition.”
“The nutrition transition happens very quickly,” says Marion Nestle, a nutritionist at New York University whose books include What to Eat and Why Calories Count. “As soon as people get money, they start buying more meat and more processed foods. Well, that’s fine if you don’t eat too much of it. The problem is that we as humans, when we’re confronted with large amounts of delicious food, we eat large amounts of food.”
As part of a municipal anti-obesity campaign, the snack bar at Chania’s city hall now serves traditional baked goods instead of fast food and other snacks. Photo by Jonathan Miller. It typically starts with the upper classes, who do less physical work and can afford to buy more fattening food. For a while, being plump is a sign of wealth and health.
But then, in most places, there’s a shift. People with money start to value thinness. At the same time, farmers move into the cities, women join the work force and have less time to cook, machines replace manual labor, kids watch more TV and packaged food becomes cheaper than fresh food. Pretty soon you have an epidemic, with the worst effects felt among those with lower incomes.
“Health officials and policy makers are realizing what the costs of obesity are likely to be not only to the individuals themselves but to the society,” Nestle says. “The question is what to do about it. People are trying lots of different things, and more power to them. But nobody really has an answer.”
The dietitian Christina Makratzaki showed me some of the things people are trying in Crete. A burger chain has started serving things like freshly squeezed juice and turkey wraps. The canteen at the local bus station is offering traditional Cretan dishes, bathed in olive oil. The association of school snack bar operators has told its members to cut out the sweets and sodas at the kiosks they rent, and most have complied.
She took me to see the mayor of Chania, Emmanouil Skoulakis. He happens to be a doctor who served several terms as Greece’s deputy minister of health. Skoulakis said the obesity crisis was of great personal interest to him – that was why he was willing to see me.
He told me the city sponsors exercise programs and a local food festival, where people could talk with chefs and sample traditional cuisine. Last spring, it helped organize visits by 14 dietitians to some of the schools. But money is tight. Beyond rallying volunteers, he said, there’s not much the government can do.
That’s especially true now, with Greece in crisis. Unemployment is 25 percent and people are marching in the streets. I asked everyone I met if they thought the economic troubles may have a silver lining, sending people back to the old ways, eating fruits and vegetables and dessert just on Sundays. They all shook their heads. With junk food so much cheaper than fresh food, they say, the lighter people’s wallets, the heavier they’ll get.
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Sam Eaton
Food for 9 Billion
Graying Farmers Force Japan to Rethink Food System
Sam Eaton
Food for 9 Billion
Graying Farmers Force Japan to Rethink Food System
As the average age of its farmers creeps into the 70s, Japan grapples with a question that many industrialized nations now face: Who will grow our food in the future?
A farmer in Japan prunes his fruit trees. Photo by Sam Eaton. The average age of a farmer in Japan is roughly 70 years old. That’s not a problem in its own right. Unfortunately, though, few younger people are showing an interest in taking over. And that is forcing officials, and the farmers themselves, to make some tough decisions.
This video was produced by The Center for Investigative Reporting.
Reporter/producer: Sam Eaton
Camera: Sam Eaton and Irene Herrera
Editor: Charlotte Buchen
Local fixer: Winifred Bird
Additional field translation: Toru Seno, Yuko Ota, Lindee Hoshikawa
Series producer: Cassandra Herrman
Executive producer: Sharon Tiller -
WORKING
Profiles of workers in the global economy, broadcast as a special monthly feature on Marketplace.
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Sean Cole
WORKING
Circus Performer
Sean Cole
WORKING
Circus Performer
Svitlana Svystun spends ten months a year traveling around the United Kingdom. Her coworkers include a human cannonball, a crossbow artist, and a crew of Hungarian roustabouts. It’s a dangerous, nomadic life. But it’s surprisingly domestic, too.
As a performer with The Great Moscow State Circus, Svitlana Svystun spends ten months a year traveling from fairground to fairground around the United Kingdom. Her coworkers include a human cannonball, a crossbow artist, and a crew of Hungarian roustabouts.Home is a cramped trailer that she shares with her ringmaster husband Andrey and their three-year-old son Maxim. She does two performances a day, six days a week, risking serious injury every time she steps into the ring.
It’s a dangerous, nomadic life. But it’s surprisingly domestic, too.
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Jonathan Miller
WORKING
Industrial Designer
Jonathan Miller
WORKING
Industrial Designer
Industrial designers are the anonymous people who decide how the things around us look and feel. For Raffaella Mangiarotti, design isn’t about colors or shapes. It’s about solving problems.
There’s a huge amount of human effort buried in almost everything around us. You just need to know where to look.Peer deep into a toaster or a loaf of bread and you’ll find engineers and farmers, bankers and accountants, scientists, secretaries, architects, and graphic artists, not to mention politicians and tax collectors, health inspectors and extension workers, truck drivers and mechanics.
Industrial designers may be the ultimate “embeds.” They’re the anonymous people who decide how the things around us look and feel. Raffaella Mangiarotti lives in Milan, the global capital of design. She designs everything from plungers and toilet brushes to vacuum cleaners and washing machines.
For Mangiarotti, design isn’t about objects or colors or shapes. It’s about solving problems.
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Kelly McEvers
WORKING
Sex Worker
Kelly McEvers
WORKING
Sex Worker
Samanta plies her trade in Baku, an oil boom town. In a corrupt and violent society, it can be a very dangerous life – especially for a woman who was born a man.
Samanta moved to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, for the same reason that thousands of other foreigners did: the oil boom.As the eastern terminus of a new pipeline carrying oil from the former Soviet Union to Europe and points west, the city has swelled with oil workers, construction workers, businessmen, and engineers. And, as in boomtowns everywhere, with sex workers like Samanta.
In a corrupt and violent society, it can be a very dangerous life – especially for a woman who was born a man.
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Gregory Warner
WORKING
Tannery Worker
Gregory Warner
WORKING
Tannery Worker
Mohmen left his village at 13 and quickly found work stacking animal skins in one of Karachi’s many tanneries. Now 17, he’s still doing the same job. The longer he works, the deeper his debt. “I don’t want to smile,” Mohmen says, “but it’s all I can do.”
Mohmen left his village at 13 and quickly found work stacking animal skins in one of Karachi’s many tanneries. He wasn’t allowed to stand by the window when the fumes overtook him. Now, at 17, he’s still doing the same job.His boss says Mohmen’s a good kid – smart, hard-working, easy to get along with. But with no education, he’s gone about as far as he can go.
Mohmen sends almost all of his money home. Sometimes, he says, he feels caught in a loop: the longer he works, the deeper his debt; the older he gets, the more his parents depend on his income. But sometimes he finds himself smiling.
“I don’t want to smile,” he says, “but it’s all I can do.”
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Jonathan Miller
WORKING
Movie Director
Jonathan Miller
WORKING
Movie Director
Nigeria’s Nollywood film industry may be the third largest in the world, but with little government support, daily power failures, no real studios, and rudimentary equipment, Nigerian filmmakers must be masters of making do. That describes Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen to a tee.
Nigeria produces more movies per year than any other country but India and the United States. Since the 1990s, “Nollywood” videos have been an entertainment staple – and a source of pride – for Africans everywhere.But with little government support, daily power failures, no real studios, and the most rudimentary equipment, Nigerian filmmakers can’t just be artists. They need to be masters of making do.
That describes Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen. At 37, the man known as “The Governor” has already directed more than 150 films. And every single one has been a struggle.
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Kelly McEvers
WORKING
Cargo Agent
Kelly McEvers
WORKING
Cargo Agent
Foreign workers have the same rights in Saudi Arabia, as long as they’re alive. But when non-Muslims die there, as thousands do each year, they have to go home for burial. And somebody’s got to get them there. Meet Wahid Khan Habibula.
About one-fourth of the people who live in Saudi Arabia are foreign workers. Many come from Sunni Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan, or Bangladesh. But others are Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and minority Shiites.All foreign workers have the same rights in the kingdom, as long as they’re alive. But when non-Muslims die there, as thousands do each year, they have to go home for burial. And somebody’s got to get them there.
Meet Wahid Khan Habibula.
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Sandy Tolan
WORKING
Cabinet Minister
Sandy Tolan
WORKING
Cabinet Minister
Gordana Jankuloska’s assignment is clear: to clean up decades of police corruption and violence in a former East Bloc country desperate to catch up with the rest of Europe. It’s a lot to ask of a young woman with a taste for nature shows and stuffed animals. She says bring it on.
Remember Hercules, the hero from Greek mythology? He’s famous for the twelve labors he was forced to perform by one of his rivals. One of the toughest was to get rid of 30 years worth of manure left by a herd of royal cattle.That’s a lot like the job facing Macedonia’s interior minister Gordana Jankuloska. Only in her case the mess is decades of corruption and violence in a former East Bloc country desperate to catch up with the rest of Europe.
At barely five feet and 100 pounds, she doesn’t quite have Hercules’ physique. But she’s got the shovel, and she’s determined to use it.
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Claudine LoMonaco
WORKING
Lobster Diver
Claudine LoMonaco
WORKING
Lobster Diver
Romulo Greham, a Miskito Indian on Honduras’ Caribbean coast, almost lost his life while diving for lobsters for the U.S. market. Now he’s trying to keep other divers from the repeating his mistakes.
Walk into your local chain restaurant and you can get a lobster tail for around 15 bucks. Ever wonder where the lobster comes from, or why it’s so cheap?The U.S. imports about 100 million pounds of lobster from international waters every year. Much of it is caught by hand by divers in the Caribbean Sea.
In Honduras, about 3,000 men make their living that way. Every year several dozen of them get seriously hurt, and some of them die.
Romulo Greham, a Miskito Indian, almost lost his life in a diving accident. Now he’s trying to keep other divers from the repeating his mistakes.
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Chris Brookes
WORKING
Oil Worker
Chris Brookes
WORKING
Oil Worker
Blair Ghent left a good job in Toronto to return home to rural Newfoundland. But work is hard to come by on the island, and soon he found himself joining thousands of unemployed Newfoundlanders commuting 3,000 miles to the oil sands fields of Alberta.
Pam Pardy and Blair Ghent left good jobs in Toronto to return home to rural Newfoundland. They thought the quality of life would be better there for their son Brody.But work is hard to come by on the island, and soon Blair found himself joining thousands of unemployed Newfoundlanders commuting 3,000 miles to the oil sands fields of Alberta.
The fields raise big questions about the planet’s energy future. But for Blair and Pam, they raise more immediate questions – like who will help Brody with his homework, and whether their marriage will survive the time apart.
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Sandy Tolan
WORKING
Pop Singer
Sandy Tolan
WORKING
Pop Singer
Diana Dimova says she’s never so moved as when she sings the ancient mountain music of her native Bulgaria. But it’s no way for an ambitious, attractive young woman to make a living.
Diana Dimova says she’s never so moved as when she sings the ancient mountain music of her native Bulgaria. The music, distinguished by its haunting harmonies, was briefly popular in western Europe, and still enjoys a small but loyal audience.But it’s no way for an ambitious, attractive young woman to make a living. So Diana (better known by her stage name, Dayana) has decided to become a pop star.
She sings chalga, a popular form of dance music in central Europe. She performs for $10 a night at clubs, plus tips. It’s hardly glamorous, but stardom could be just around the corner.
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Kelly McEvers
WORKING
Fixer
Kelly McEvers
WORKING
Fixer
Tarek Haidar Eskandar can deliver an interview with a rebel commander or an interview with a victim of the latest catastrophe. Or at least that’s the promise. It’s a seat-of-the-pants business, and Tarek’s a seat-of-the-pants type of guy.
Tarek Haidar Eskandar with his sister. Photo by Kelly McEvers. Read a dispatch in the world news section of your local paper, or listen to a foreign feature on the radio, and there’s a good chance a fixer helped make the story possible.
Tarek Haidar Eskandar doesn’t work for the A-list news organizations. He hangs around Beirut’s popular journalists’ hotels, looking for people looking for access. He can deliver an interview with a rebel commander, or an interview with a victim of the latest catastrophe.
Or at least that’s the promise. It’s a seat-of-the-pants business, and Tarek’s a seat-of-the-pants type of guy.
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Worlds of Difference
Stories about people and communities facing critical decisions about who they are and who they want to be.
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Sandy Tolan, Elif Shafak
Worlds of Difference
The Street of the Cauldron Makers
Sandy Tolan, Elif Shafak
Worlds of Difference
The Street of the Cauldron Makers
Modern Turkey emerged in the 1920s as a secular, westernized nation where the rule was always to look forward, never back. But novelist Elif Shafak says buried memories have a way of rising to the surface. She takes us on a tour of an Istanbul street, where battles over identity, modernity, ethnicity, and minority rights have played out in miniature.
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Melissa Robbins
Worlds of Difference
Fighting the Water
Melissa Robbins
Worlds of Difference
Fighting the Water
On the tangled braids of earth and marsh that form the Mississippi Delta, the Houma Indians have lived for centuries, isolated by water. But now the land is dissolving beneath their feet, and many Houma fear that their unique culture will dissolve along with it.
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Marianne McCune
Worlds of Difference
Relearning the Peace
Marianne McCune
Worlds of Difference
Relearning the Peace
Burundi’s Hutus and Tutsis practice the same religion and speak the same language. Intermarriage is common. But decades of violence have made even the most imaginary differences tragically real. In 2005, voters in Burundi approved a constitution that requires the two groups to share power. For the country’s new leaders, that means unlearning bad habits. Marianne McCune attends a retreat for the newly integrated national police.
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Karen Michel
Worlds of Difference
Seeking the Middle Way
Karen Michel
Worlds of Difference
Seeking the Middle Way
For decades, the goal of the tiny Himalayan Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan has been neither to keep pace with the rest of the world nor to hide from it, but rather to increase what the king calls “Gross National Happiness.”
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Tatiana Schreiber
Worlds of Difference
Café Rebeldía
Tatiana Schreiber
Worlds of Difference
Café Rebeldía
The Mutvitz cooperative in Chiapas, Mexico, sells a portion of its coffee on the growing global “solidarity market.” The farmers, who are part of the Zapatista rebel movement, see the coffee business as a way not just to move forward economically, but to strengthen their Mayan heritage.
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Chris Brookes
Worlds of Difference
A Map of the Sea
Chris Brookes
Worlds of Difference
A Map of the Sea
For centuries, the Newfoundland fishery was hailed as the greatest in the world. Then, in 1992, the cod disappeared. Now the islanders must find a way to keep that culture from going the way of the cod. An award-winning meditation on memory, fishing, music, and dance.
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Kate Davidson
Worlds of Difference
Saints and Indians
Kate Davidson
Worlds of Difference
Saints and Indians
Between 1954 and 2000, tens of thousands of Native American children went to live with Mormon families during the school year. For some, it was a chance to overcome the stresses of reservation life. For others, it was a repudiation of their identity. For everyone, it was a life-changing experience.
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Alan Weisman, Nancy Hand
Worlds of Difference
Cotopaxi Pilgrimage
Alan Weisman, Nancy Hand
Worlds of Difference
Cotopaxi Pilgrimage
For the Tigua Indians of Ecuador, the spectacular 19,000-foot Cotopaxi volcano is both a sheltering spirit and a source of artistic inspiration. But the Tigua stopped visiting their sacred mountain when the government declared it a national park and began charging admission. Recently two Tigua painters led an improvised pilgrimage to the volcano’s glacier.
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Frank Browning
Worlds of Difference
Kinvara: A Spirit of Place
Frank Browning
Worlds of Difference
Kinvara: A Spirit of Place
For much of the 20th century, the town of Kinvara, on Ireland’s west coast, was rich in charm but poor in just about everything else. Then the Celtic Tiger awoke. Today, Kinvara is crawling with developers and speculators. The boom has forced the townsfolk to ask tough questions about where they want their community to go.
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Lorne Matalon
Worlds of Difference
The Reindeer People
Lorne Matalon
Worlds of Difference
The Reindeer People
About 40 percent of all Mongolians are nomads, but officials there say they want most of them to settle down. With their reindeer herds dwindling and government support disappearing, the Tsachin people have to decide whether to abandon their ancient way of life.
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Allan Coukell
Worlds of Difference
The Face of the Shaman
Allan Coukell
Worlds of Difference
The Face of the Shaman
For thousands of years, the Mongolian shaman has been the intermediary between the human and spirit worlds. Shamanism was suppressed for 70 years under communism. Now it’s back in the open, competing for customers in a market that’s crowded with alternatives.
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Marianne McCune
Worlds of Difference
The Zapotec Bible
Marianne McCune
Worlds of Difference
The Zapotec Bible
In the indigenous Mexican village of Yaganiza, Rebecca Long is slowly translating the New Testament into the local language. But her presence, like the group she works with, has not been without controversy. A complex story about language, religion, tradition, and trust.
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Alan Weisman
Worlds of Difference
Competing for Souls
Alan Weisman
Worlds of Difference
Competing for Souls
Korea’s transformation into an industrial powerhouse has been accompanied by an equally dramatic spiritual shift. With Christians now dominant in political and economic life, Buddhists wonder whether they have a role to play in the country’s future.
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Julian Crandall Hollick
Worlds of Difference
Occitan Rock
Julian Crandall Hollick
Worlds of Difference
Occitan Rock
Since Napoleon declared it the official language of the republic, French has been at the core of national identity. Now some southerners are challenging that notion, using a blend of reggae, Brazilian rhythms, and the musical forms of the medieval troubadors.
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Jonathan Miller
Worlds of Difference
The Free Monks
Jonathan Miller
Worlds of Difference
The Free Monks
In Greece, the Orthodox Church has always presented itself as the guardian of national identity. But some think it’s not doing enough to protect the country from western domination. We meet a rock band made up of black-robed monks whose music rails against globalization and the “New World Order.”
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Frank Browning
Worlds of Difference
Roma Love Story
Frank Browning
Worlds of Difference
Roma Love Story
In May 2004, eight Eastern European countries joined the European Union, whose laws forbid child marriage. Some Roma see this as a death sentence for their culture. But not Gyula and Marika Vámosi of Pecs, Hungary.
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Jonathan Miller
Worlds of Difference
Return of the Hellenes
Jonathan Miller
Worlds of Difference
Return of the Hellenes
More than 95% of all Greeks are Orthodox. But recently there’s been a revival of interest in the pre-Christian past. For some, that means taking another look at ancient Greek ideals like reason and democratic debate. For others, it means worshiping the Olympian gods. All say their eyes are on the future.
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Alan Weisman
Worlds of Difference
Resurrecting the Zápara
Alan Weisman
Worlds of Difference
Resurrecting the Zápara
The Zápara once ranged far across the western Amazon. By the 1970s, anthropologists concluded that their culture was extinct. But a handful of native speakers survived. Now they’re trying to resuscitate their language and culture. But a new danger looms.
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Dmae Roberts
Worlds of Difference
Tell Me Wai
Dmae Roberts
Worlds of Difference
Tell Me Wai
Musicians Mina Ripia and Maaka McGregor learned to speak Maori in college, after the New Zealand government made it an official national language. Now they’re part of a new generation of Maoris who have decided to move their culture forward rather than leave it behind.
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Vera Frankl
Worlds of Difference
Connecting the Hebrides, Part 2
Vera Frankl
Worlds of Difference
Connecting the Hebrides, Part 2
Scotland’s Outer Hebrides are home to some of the purest Gaelic culture on earth – but they’re a tough place to make a living. That may be changing. In the second part of a two-part series, Vera Frankl looks at how the Internet is transforming the economy and helping keep the culture alive.
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Vera Frankl
Worlds of Difference
Connecting the Hebrides, Part 1
Vera Frankl
Worlds of Difference
Connecting the Hebrides, Part 1
In the first part of a two-part series about change in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, Vera Frankl visits “crofters” (small-scale farmers) who are finally taking control of their land after centuries of working for absentee landlords.
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Sandy Tolan
Worlds of Difference
Ladino Transformation
Sandy Tolan
Worlds of Difference
Ladino Transformation
Bulgaria’s Jews are survivors, but the language they have spoken for centuries is in trouble. Sandy Tolan visits with some of Bulgaria’s last Ladino speakers as they try to keep the tongue from going silent.
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Victoria Mauleón
Worlds of Difference
Basque Family Ties
Victoria Mauleón
Worlds of Difference
Basque Family Ties
American filmmaker Victoria Mauleón has always avoided political topics on her yearly visits to her father’s family near Pamplona. This time she packed a microphone.
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Jonathan Miller
Worlds of Difference
Maasai Schools
Jonathan Miller
Worlds of Difference
Maasai Schools
The Maasai people of Kenya have long considered public education as a trick designed to rob them of their culture. Now many see the schools as a key to survival – and as a way to change some aspects of their culture that need changing.
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Sandy Tolan
Worlds of Difference
The Imaginary Village
Sandy Tolan
Worlds of Difference
The Imaginary Village
In 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee their homes to make way for the new state of Israel. More than 50 years later, the villages of Palestine remain intact in the imaginations of refugees and their descendants.
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Marianne McCune
Worlds of Difference
Mezcal Dreams
Marianne McCune
Worlds of Difference
Mezcal Dreams
Mexican migrants to the U.S. send back billions of dollars to their families every year, but their absence comes at a price. Marianne McCune reports on one tiny pueblo that is brewing up plans to keep its people from leaving.
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Allan Coukell
Worlds of Difference
North End Neighborhood
Allan Coukell
Worlds of Difference
North End Neighborhood
Boston’s North End is bursting with Old World charm. But a proposed commercial development has newcomers and old-timers at odds over the type of neighborhood they want to live in. Their positions aren’t what you might expect.
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Reese Erlich
Worlds of Difference
Singapore Renewal
Reese Erlich
Worlds of Difference
Singapore Renewal
Singapore’s Chinatown used to be a crowded and chaotic place. Then the government renewed the life right out of it. Authorities are working to restore the neighborhood’s authenticity, but with little success. Little India, meanwhile, has retained its character. Is there a lesson here?
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Frank Browning
Worlds of Difference
Rethinking France’s Republican Deal, Part 2
Frank Browning
Worlds of Difference
Rethinking France’s Republican Deal, Part 2
Exploring the rapidly changing worlds of France’s Muslims and Jews. In the second part of a two-part series, we meet the Chefegs, a Muslim family from the suburbs of Paris.
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Frank Browning
Worlds of Difference
Rethinking France’s Republican Deal, Part 1
Frank Browning
Worlds of Difference
Rethinking France’s Republican Deal, Part 1
Exploring the rapidly changing worlds of France’s Muslims and Jews. In the first part of a two-part series, we meet the Alters, a Jewish family from Toulouse.
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Reese Erlich
Worlds of Difference
Higher Ground: Borneo Resettlement
Reese Erlich
Worlds of Difference
Higher Ground: Borneo Resettlement
In the late 1990s, the government of Malaysia uprooted 15,000 indigenous people to make way for the giant Bakun dam. Most were resettled in “model” towns, where unemployment, drugs and crime took root. About 400 members of the Kenyah tribe decided to build their own resettlement center instead.
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Allan Coukell
Worlds of Difference
Bringing Home the Bones
Allan Coukell
Worlds of Difference
Bringing Home the Bones
Members of the Haida nation retrieve ancestral remains from a museum in Chicago and carry them home for proper burial in the Queen Charlotte Islands, off Canada’s Pacific coast. It’s a journey full of pain and healing – and part of a worldwide movement among native groups to reclaim what is theirs.
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Jonathan Miller
Worlds of Difference
Andean Harvest
Jonathan Miller
Worlds of Difference
Andean Harvest
Peasant farmers in Peru’s central highlands grow hundreds of varieties of potatoes. Now they’re being encouraged to sell them to high-end consumers. But potatoes are more than just food in the Andes – they’re part of a complex spiritual, biological, and cultural universe. Will the market change that?
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Jonathan Miller
Worlds of Difference
Welsh Renaissance
Jonathan Miller
Worlds of Difference
Welsh Renaissance
Languages around the world are disappearing at an unprecedented rate. But Welsh is making a comeback, and children are leading the way. Now the challenge is to move Welsh from the classroom to the living room. Meet the Steel family of Clydach.
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World Views
First-person documentaries reflecting the perspectives of ordinary people around the world.
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Barbara Ferry, Deborah Begel
World Views
Luis and Negra
Barbara Ferry, Deborah Begel
World Views
Luis and Negra
Mexican-American writer Luis Alberto Urrea returns to the slums of Tijuana, where he worked as a young man, to see a woman he knew as a girl. His story, for This American Life, explores the sometimes uneasy relationship between “first world” writers and their “third world” subjects.
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Victoria Mauleón
Border Stories
Colonia Panorama, Tejas (Spanish)
Victoria Mauleón
Border Stories
Colonia Panorama, Tejas (Spanish)
A Mexican immigrant organizes the residents of his slum on the Texas side of the Mexican border. In Spanish.
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Alan Weisman
Worlds of Difference
Chiloe: A Bridge Too Far?
Alan Weisman
Worlds of Difference
Chiloe: A Bridge Too Far?
The island of Chiloé, off the coast of Chile, is known for its misty beauty, quaint architecture, and distinctive cuisine. Now Chile’s government is proposing to build the longest bridge in Latin America to connect Chiloé to the mainland. Islanders aren’t sure they want to be connected.
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Sam Quiñones
World Views
Tijuana Opera
Sam Quiñones
World Views
Tijuana Opera
Tijuana has been known for bullfights and beer, but the Mexican border city also has a growing opera community. Recitals and lectures are frequent, Tijuana natives are studying and performing in opera’s European citadels, and the city now has its first opera.
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Border Stories
Documentaries and features in English and Spanish exploring social, economic, legal, and environmental issues along the U.S.-Mexico border.
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Sandy Tolan
Worlds of Difference
Camisea: A Light in the Jungle
Sandy Tolan
Worlds of Difference
Camisea: A Light in the Jungle
For the native peoples of the Amazon, petroleum development has often been an environmental and cultural nightmare. But in Camisea, a huge natural gas deposit in eastern Peru, the oil companies say they’re committed to getting it right. The Machiguenga people aren’t yet convinced.
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Jonathan Miller
Worlds of Difference
To Perpetuate Life as it was Meant to Be
Jonathan Miller
Worlds of Difference
To Perpetuate Life as it was Meant to Be
By almost every measure, native Hawaiians are the worst off of Hawaii’s many ethnic groups. One of the biggest problems is drug abuse. Ho’omau Ke Ola is a community treatment program that looks to island traditions for a way forward.
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Sandy Tolan
Worlds of Difference
Sarvodaya: An Alternate Path
Sandy Tolan
Worlds of Difference
Sarvodaya: An Alternate Path
Can development based on spiritual values, local activism, and volunteer labor compete with a global system built on western market economics? From Sri Lanka, Sandy Tolan reports on a movement that seeks to improve the lot of millions of poor people with self-help programs steeped in Buddhist principles.
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Sandy Tolan
Worlds of Difference
An Exodus Of Women
Sandy Tolan
Worlds of Difference
An Exodus Of Women
Hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankan women work abroad as housemaids, mainly in the Middle East. Their remittances are a cornerstone of their country’s economy, and a desperately needed source of income for their families. But their absence is keenly felt.
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Victoria Mauleón
World Views
Panorama, Texas
Victoria Mauleón
World Views
Panorama, Texas
A Mexican immigrant organizes the residents of his slum on the Texas side of the Mexican border.
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Cecilia Vaisman
World Views
The Cross of Juárez
Cecilia Vaisman
World Views
The Cross of Juárez
A wave of assassinations of women factory workers in Ciudad Juárez shows no sign of abating, and trust between the twin cities of El Paso and Juárez has given way to a climate of fear.
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Cecilia Vaisman
Border Stories
La Cruz de Juárez (Spanish)
Cecilia Vaisman
Border Stories
La Cruz de Juárez (Spanish)
A wave of assassinations of women factory workers in Ciudad Juárez shows no sign of abating, and trust between the twin cities of El Paso and Juárez has given way to a climate of fear. Spanish version.
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Alan Weisman
Border Stories
LA Ecovillage
Alan Weisman
Border Stories
LA Ecovillage
Bringing ecological living to an urban slum neighborhood and a Mexican-American barrio, complete with electric low-riders and solar-powered rap recording studios.
The term “ecovillage” evokes pastoral visions of earthen homes and glistening solar panels. But in cosmopolitan Los Angeles, the idea of ecological alternative living gets stretched to include an urban slum neighborhood and a Mexican-American barrio, complete with electric low-riders and solar-powered rap recording studios. -
Jonathan Miller
Special Projects
Mapping a Lost Territory
Jonathan Miller
Special Projects
Mapping a Lost Territory
In the highland jungle of Peru, two men rush to preserve the geography, history, music, and myths of a now-scattered people using digital mapping technology and collective memory. The story served as a pilot for the “Worlds of Difference” series.
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Sandy Tolan
World Views
Coming North
Sandy Tolan
World Views
Coming North
A visit to a shelter for transients in the Mexican border town of Nogales, where would-be migrants prepare for the harrowing trip across the border to the United States.
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Alan Weisman
Border Stories
Laguna Madre
Alan Weisman
Border Stories
Laguna Madre
A profile of people and place – a fragile ecosystem spanning both sides of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo near the Gulf of Mexico.
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Sandy Tolan
World Views
Me and Hank
Sandy Tolan
World Views
Me and Hank
The story of a boy and his hero, baseball slugger Hank Aaron, 25 years after Aaron’s traumatic chase for baseball’s all-time career home run record, and an exploration of the hatred Aaron endured in chasing a white man’s record.
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Cecilia Vaisman
World Views
Operation Pedro Pan
Cecilia Vaisman
World Views
Operation Pedro Pan
The story of a six-year-old girl and the secret U.S.-funded program that sent her and thousands of unaccompanied Cuban children to live in the United States.
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Sandy Tolan
Gloucester at the Crossroads
The Paint Factory
Sandy Tolan
Gloucester at the Crossroads
The Paint Factory
Townsfolk debate the fate of an abandoned 19th century paint factory on Gloucester’s inner harbor. It’s symbolic of a larger debate over Gloucester’s economic and cultural identity.
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Gloucester at the Crossroads
Examining the social, cultural, and economic effects of declining fish stocks in the U.S.’s oldest fishing port.
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Sandy Tolan
World Views
The Lemon Tree
Sandy Tolan
World Views
The Lemon Tree
An audio documentary, weaving the voices of an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man whose families occupied the same house, exploring the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
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Stories from the Middle East
Documenting conflicts over land and water, and efforts to promote peace and understanding.
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Sandy Tolan
Gloucester at the Crossroads
Lost at Sea
Sandy Tolan
Gloucester at the Crossroads
Lost at Sea
Over the last four centuries, Gloucester has lost, on average, one fisherman every thirteen days. The memory of the dead, and the knowledge that there will be more, have always haunted the town and its people.
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Sandy Tolan
Gloucester at the Crossroads
St. Peter’s Fiesta
Sandy Tolan
Gloucester at the Crossroads
St. Peter’s Fiesta
For nine nights each summer, the Italian-Americans of Gloucester gather to pray to the patron saint of fishermen. It’s been a tradition since the 1920s. But with the depletion of the fish stocks, townsfolk are beginning to contemplate a very different future.
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Cecilia Vaisman
Special Projects
Carolyn
Cecilia Vaisman
Special Projects
Carolyn
A documentary about a woman who grew up hating blacks in a white Boston neighborhood, and how her attitudes have changed.
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Sandy Tolan
Gloucester at the Crossroads
The Penny Fish and the Multinational
Sandy Tolan
Gloucester at the Crossroads
The Penny Fish and the Multinational
Gloucester was once one of the greatest fishing ports on earth. Today it’s a gritty place where fishermen struggle to make a living. A debate over a proposed foreign-owned herring processing plant casts light on the challenges facing a town – and an industry – in transition.
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Searching for Solutions
Documenting the efforts of innovators and visionaries working on ways to promote sustainable growth and development.
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Sandy Tolan
Searching for Solutions
Mining History for its Lessons
Sandy Tolan
Searching for Solutions
Mining History for its Lessons
Have human beings always had the potential to destroy their own society, or is this a more recent, industrial phenomenon? Can anything be learned from the environmental missteps of our ancestors?
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Cecilia Vaisman, Nancy Postero
Searching for Solutions
Brazil’s Birth Control Crusader
Cecilia Vaisman, Nancy Postero
Searching for Solutions
Brazil’s Birth Control Crusader
In northwestern Brazil, a controversial doctor is on a mission to lower birth rates.
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Cecilia Vaisman, Nancy Postero
Searching for Solutions
Women’s Empowerment in India
Cecilia Vaisman, Nancy Postero
Searching for Solutions
Women’s Empowerment in India
The cultural, religious, and social realities that stand in the way of lowering fertility rates in India are apparent in the tiny farming villages where one women’s group is trying to bring about change.
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Cecilia Vaisman, Nancy Postero
Searching for Solutions
Norplant
Cecilia Vaisman, Nancy Postero
Searching for Solutions
Norplant
In India and Brazil, population control advocates have come into conflict with feminists over the contraceptive drug Norplant, considered by some to be among the most effective birth control methods available.
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Cecilia Vaisman, Nancy Postero
Searching for Solutions
Family Planning in India
Cecilia Vaisman, Nancy Postero
Searching for Solutions
Family Planning in India
With funding from USAID, Indian health officials have launched a massive new family planning effort in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most densely populated state.
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Alan Weisman
Searching for Solutions
Gaviotas
Alan Weisman
Searching for Solutions
Gaviotas
A group of Colombian visionaries has created a sustainable community in one of their country’s most inhospitable and dangerous places. This piece formed the basis of Alan’s award-winning book “Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World.”
In the early 1970s, a group of South American visionaries realized that the coming population crisis would one day require people to live in places formerly considered unsuitable for human habitation. They decided that this was an opportunity to try to design a workable future, by and for the Third World, from limited resources.
The place they chose was on the desolate, barren plains of eastern Colombia, a country too often thought of as producing only coffee, cocaine, and bloodshed. The village they founded, called Gaviotas, has become a bright example of how to fashion an ideal tropical society.
Many of the ingenious, affordable technologies they’ve created have spread to other developing nations, and may have much to offer the developed world as well.
This piece formed the basis of Alan Weisman’s book Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World.
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Vanishing Homelands
Chronicling the changes to land and people across the Americas since the arrival of Columbus.
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Katie Davis
Vanishing Homelands
Escaping the Tourist Trap
Katie Davis
Vanishing Homelands
Escaping the Tourist Trap
In the Mexican state of Chiapas, Chamula Indian artisans are trying to create a tourist economy on their own terms.
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Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman
Vanishing Homelands
Yacyretá
Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman
Vanishing Homelands
Yacyretá
A giant dam project on the border of Paraguay and Argentina raises questions about the social and environmental impact of major infrastructure projects.
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Sandy Tolan, Nancy Postero
Vanishing Homelands
In Panama, a Clash of Cultures on the Frontier
Sandy Tolan, Nancy Postero
Vanishing Homelands
In Panama, a Clash of Cultures on the Frontier
The construction of a road and hydroelectric dam in eastern Panama has threatened the survival of Guna Indians who live in the area.
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Sandy Tolan, Nancy Postero
Vanishing Homelands
Quichua Indians and Oil
Sandy Tolan, Nancy Postero
Vanishing Homelands
Quichua Indians and Oil
In the Amazon of Ecuador, two native villages have radically different attitudes toward oil development.
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Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman
Vanishing Homelands
Argentina’s Guaraní Indians
Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman
Vanishing Homelands
Argentina’s Guaraní Indians
Once the largest tribe in South America, the Guaraní have nearly all left their native forests. But one last band is holding out.
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Sandy Tolan, Nancy Postero
Vanishing Homelands
Saving Jungle Souls
Sandy Tolan, Nancy Postero
Vanishing Homelands
Saving Jungle Souls
The story of Bolivia’s nomadic Yuqui Indians and the American Evangelical Christians who coaxed them out of the jungle. The first story in the Vanishing Homelands series.
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Sandy Tolan, Alan Weisman
Vanishing Homelands
Celebrating the Discovery
Sandy Tolan, Alan Weisman
Vanishing Homelands
Celebrating the Discovery
Preparations for the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas raise questions about the value of celebrating the event that led to the European conquest.
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Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman
Vanishing Homelands
Homelands Regained
Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman
Vanishing Homelands
Homelands Regained
In Colombia, the Paez Indians have resorted to guerrilla insurrection to reclaim their ancestral territory from the great landed families of Spanish descent.
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Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman
Vanishing Homelands
Miskito Coast
Cecilia Vaisman, Alan Weisman
Vanishing Homelands
Miskito Coast
On Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast, Miskito Indians and American investors face off in a battle over the future of the region’s resources.
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Sandy Tolan, Nancy Postero
Vanishing Homelands
Oil in Ecuador’s Amazon
Sandy Tolan, Nancy Postero
Vanishing Homelands
Oil in Ecuador’s Amazon
A U.S. oil company has a controversial plan to build a new road and oil pipeline into some of the most remote Indian lands in the Amazon.
