The most controversial and famous anthropologist of modern time describes his seminal lifelong research among the Yanomamo Peoples of the Amazon basin and how his startling observations provoked admiration among many fellow anthropologists and outrage among others.

Culture shock : my first year in the field -- Discovering the significant of the names -- Raids and revenge : why villages fission and move -- Bringing my family to Yanomamöland and my early encounters with the Salesians -- First contact with the new Yanamamö villages -- Geography lesson -- From fieldwork to science -- Conflicts over women -- Fighting and violence -- First contact with the Iwahikoroba-teri -- Yanamamö origins and their fertile crescent -- Yanamamö social organization -- Three headmen of authority -- Twilight in cultural anthropology : postmodernism and radical advocacy supplant science -- Confrontation with the Salesians -- Darkness in cultural anthropology.