"Eighty years ago, the British traveled the world and found it almost entirely a source of satire and contempt. Now many a traveler (from Seattle, let's say) is hungry to go to the Amazon, to Tibet, or the darkest parts of Africa, and find it a source of veneration. Here is life unspoiled; here are...

As a child, you often rode a bus that crossed a bridge over a river. You would look out the window at the river meandering toward its source in the mountains, and you would wonder. You grew up, went to college, found work on another continent and forgot about the river -- for a while....