In this book distinguished anthropologist June Nash demonstrates how ethnography can illuminate a wide array of global problems. She describes encounters with an urban U.S. community undergoing de-industrialization, with Mandalay rice cultivators accommodating to post-World War II independence through animistic pratices, with Mayans mobilizing for autonomy, and with Andean peasants and miners confronting the International Monetary Fund. Havin worked in a great variety of cultural settings around the world, Nash challenges us to expand our anthropological horizons and to think about local problems in a global manner.