"Travelers continue, in ever larger numbers, to make trips to exotic, non-Western lands, which seem to answer to some of the old stereotypes: that simpler society, where faith is pure, nature pristine, discontent (and its civilization) unknown. But paradise is always being lost. One of the recurrent themes of modern travel narratives is the depredations...

"I don’t believe in preserving culture. The real question is, what kind of world do we want to live in -- a monochromatic world of monotony, or a polychromatic world of diversity? The idea is not to eliminate modernity, as if we've got the right to sequester people like some kind of specimen in a...