Volume 49, Number 20 · December 19, 2002
Vanishing Points
By John Terborgh
The Future of the Past
by Alexander Stille
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 339 pp., $25.00
Should we be concerned at the prospect that half of the world's 6,500 or so languages will be lost within the current century? Is it a tragedy that the ancient world's greatest library at Alexandria, Egypt, disappeared without a trace? What should be done about the Great Sphinx of Giza, as the very rock it is made of fractures and crumbles in the acrid atmosphere of Cairo? Does it matter that Trobriand Islanders have lost the art of building elaborately ornamented seagoing canoes? And does conserving endangered lemurs in Madagascar justify the loss of economic opportunities for local villagers?
Review, 3716 words
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