Cheryl's Book Nook

In  Touching the Jaguar , Perkins tells the dramatic story of how, when he was a Peace Corps volunteer, his life was saved by an Amazonian shaman who taught him to “touch the jaguar,” to change his reality by embracing perceptions that transformed fears into positive actions. Despite that experience, Perkins fell back on what business school had encouraged him to do. He became an economic hit man, convincing developing countries to build huge infrastructure projects that put them in debt to the World Bank and other US-controlled institutions. Although he had been taught this was the best model for economic development, Perkins came to see that this was simply a new form of colonialism. Returning to the Amazon years later, he observed the damage caused by foreign companies and the destructive impact of his own work. He was struck by the example of a previously uncontested Amazonian tribe that touched its jaguar by uniting with age-old enemies to defend its territory ag...