"Oxford has arguably contributed more to our understanding of tribal societies than any other department of anthropology in the world.Through creating a virtual community, by uniting their work and their lives, by their assurance, generations of Oxford scholars have been able to make the leaps which take us into new and previously unsuspected worlds. They had the privileges, the shared zeal and the shock of similarity-with-difference which engenders true creativity and they made good use of it."ááá

Peter Rivière is Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology of the University of Oxford and Fellow Emeritus of Linacre College, Oxford, and has held posts at London, Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford Universities. Specialising in the native societies of Lowland South America and the history of the European exploration of Amazonia, his publications include, The Forgotten Frontier: Ranchers of North Brazil (1972), Individual and Society in Guiana (1984), and Absented-Minded Imperialism (1995). Most recently he has published, under the aegis of The Hakluyt Society, a two-volume edition of Sir Robert Schomburgk's reports on his Guiana travels.