Portland OR, USA: Illahee Lecture Series, “A Short History of Power”  April 27, 2010

“Doing the Ton,” Ronald’s memoir of the Mods and Rockers era, recently appeared in Cycle Canada, April 2010 issue.

Wright’s first novel, A Scientific Romance, won Britain’s David Higham Prize for Fiction and was chosen a book of the year by the New York Times, the Sunday Times, and the Globe & Mail. His other bestsellers include Time Among the Maya and Stolen Continents, an award-winning history of the Americas since Columbus.

Wright contributes criticism to the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications.  He has also written and presented documentaries for radio and television on both sides of the Atlantic. His latest book, What Is America? A Short History of the New World Order, was a No.1 bestseller and finalist for the B.C. Book Prize.

“Ronald Wright is an historical philosopher with a profound understanding of other cultures.” — Jan Morris

The United States is now the world’s lone superpower, whose deeds could make or break this century. For better and worse, America has Americanized the world. How, in a mere two centuries, did a marginal frontier society become the de facto ruler of the world? Why do America’s great achievements in democracy, prosperity, and civil rights often seem threatened by forces within itself?

Brimming with insight into history and human behaviour, and written in Wright’s captivating style, What Is America? shows how this came to pass; how the United States, which regards itself as the most modern country on earth, is also deeply archaic, a stronghold not only of religious fundamentalism but of “modern” beliefs in limitless progress and a universal mission that have fallen under suspicion elsewhere in the west, a rethinking driven by two World Wars and the reckless looting of our planet.

What Is America? peels away historical myths to show how the United States’ legacy of conquest and empire-building -from the old Indian wars to the wars of today -has shaped the modern world.

Honours

Reviews

“A devastating and brilliant critique.”
Winnipeg Free Press

“A provocative and well-argued book….Important [and] eminently worthwhile.”
David M. Shribman (Pulitzer winner), Globe and Mail

“Eloquently persuasive…An angry book with an excellent case.”
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star

“Buoyed by its compact, fluid prose, this account is also noteworthy for its extensive footnotes, which document but also invite readers to delve deeper.”
Booklist

“Wright’s contribution feels like a voice added to a gathering zeitgeist, an accounting of past mistakes and transgressions that allows room for the possibility of better days ahead.”
Montreal Gazette

“Brilliant.”
The Walrus

Publishers in English:  Knopf Canada, Da Capo (USA), Text (Australia & NZ)
Translations:  French, Swedish, Chinese, Korean

The most urgent questions of the twenty-first century are: where will this growth lead? can it be consolidated or sustained? and what kind of world is our present bequeathing to our future?

In A Short History of Progress –based on his acclaimed 2004 Massey Lectures — Ronald Wright argues that our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we have unleashed but seldom controlled. Only by understanding the patterns of triumph and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we recognize the experiment’s inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.

Honours

Libris Nonfiction Book of the Year Award, 2005
Book of the Year: Independent
Book of the Year: Globe and Mail
British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-Fiction finalist

Reviews

“A brilliant analysis of everything humanity has done to ruin itself down the ages.”
Jan Morris, Books of the Year, Independent on Sunday

“A compelling work of distilled wisdom… Wright is a pungent phrase-maker and a penetrating thinker. His learning is historical, anthropological and cross-cultural.”
Alex Danchev, Times Literary Supplement

“Wise, timely, and brilliant…. I don’t care if you have never read and will never read any kind of book at all, but you must read this one. [Wright] achieves in a mere 132 pages what another author couldn’t manage in 1,300.”
Paul Williams Roberts, Globe and Mail

“Provocative… Already a bestseller in Canada, Wright is now making his biggest mark since his debut novel (A Scientific Romance, 1997) attracted wide attention… illuminating and disturbing, and expansively documented.”
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“In this short, superb essay, Wright succeeds at impressing on his readers how fragile the remarkable experiment we call civilisation really is.”
Johann Hari, The Liberal

“Wright sifts the findings of archaeology and anthropology with thoughtful grace to build a potent argument.”
Steven Poole, Guardian

“Impressive…for the evidence Wright assembles from his authoritative grasp of history, and for the skill and clarity with which he imparts information. He makes history, ecology, anthropology and political science easy to read.”
Doug Esser, Associated Press

“Ronald Wright, one of this country’s intellectual treasures… takes his readers on a sweeping educational tour of history and every continent’s previous civilization… This excellent book should be required reading at the White House.”
Brownwyn Drainie, Quill & Quire

“An elegant and learned discussion of what the rise and fall of past civilizations predict about our own: nothing good.”
Maclean’s

“Rarely have I read a book that is so gripping, so immediate and so important to our times. Jared Diamond will be jealous!”
Robyn Williams, ABC (Australia)

“A beautiful tract on the plight of humanity and how we always tend to spoil our nest and why we need to learn from that.”
Senator Bob Brown, Sydney Sun Herald

Publishers in English: Canongate (UK); Text (Australia); Anansi (Canada); Carroll & Graf (USA)
Translations: 15 languages

Through unforgettable characters, a mesmerizing story, and a deep understanding of the landscape and culture of the South Seas, Henderson’s Spear explores the patterns of history and the accidents of love.

Order Henderson’s Spear: A Novel.
For American purchases
Overseas buyers, please refer to Amazon.
Or, better yet, buy and order from your local, independent bookstore.

Reviews

“An unforgettable novel, meant to be read again and again in disbelief and understanding.”
USA Today

“An intriguing, warm-toned, well-written, and spirited novel, a credit to its tradition.”
Times Literary Supplement

“Vividly elegiac in style and enveloping in its mystery.”
Kirkus Reviews

“Strong and lyrical… An outstanding novel by any measure.”
Booklist

“Wright has written a Gauguin canvas and a volcanic tremor of a novel… A compelling tale of history, mystery, and romance in the tradition of Melville, R.L. Stevenson [and] Conrad. ”
Toronto Star

“A boldly imagined novel that revels in vivid description and a lean, muscular prose… A class act.”
Newsday

“A taut fiction of tremendous beauty.”
Ottawa Citizen

Publishers in English: Henry Holt (USA); Knopf Canada; Doubleday (UK & Australia)
Foreign editions in French, German, Portuguese.

Honours

David Higham Prize
Editor’s Choice: The New York Times
A Book of the Year: Globe and Mail
A Book of the Year: The Sunday Times
A Book of the Year: The New York Times

Reviews

“An elegant novel…gripping and lyrical; you struggle to slow down but find yourself rushing forward.”
The New Yorker

“A triumph… J.G. Ballard explored this same territory in his disaster novels…but never with Wright’s psychological insight or pathos.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“The most apocalyptic dystopia since Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker, achieving the same eerie fascination and consistent believability… In 100 years’ time this book should be a classic.”
Tom Shakespeare, Guardian

“Pure pleasure… deeply seductive and brilliantly sustained… A compelling cultural satire.”
Julie Myerson, Observer

“Powerful…cunningly fashioned… The novel works on all levels [and] its flair for description can be positively Dickensian. The result is a fresh take on an old formula—the dystopian post-apocalypse novel—and a profound meditation on the nature of time.”
John Vernon, New York Times Book Review

“Wright has come up with a treasure, a delightfully witty and suspenseful fantasy — in the rip-roaring tradition of the masters.”
Alberto Manguel, Globe and Mail

“There is teeming life on every page of this remarkable novel… Themes are brilliantly adduced… Absorbing, dynamic, intricately clever.”
Rachelle Thackray, Independent on Sunday

“A powerful visionary core… few writers have imagined the future with such compelling and tragic urgency.”
Maclean’s

“[A] virtuoso performance, an audacious leap into the unknown… This is an extraordinary novel, a brilliant synthesis of interpretive and imaginative elements, and, like the best fiction, a trenchant commentary on reality.”
Financial Post

“Dazzling… A Scientific Romance [is] poetic, sexy, satirical… layered with rich bits from the author’s well-stocked mind.”
Globe and Mail

“Cool, clever, and unsettling.”
Bulletin

“A magnificent achievement.”
New Zealand Herald

“A clever and elegant novel.”
Philip Hensher, Sunday Mail

“Keeps the reader hooked… An accomplished performance.”
John Sutherland, Independent

“Ambitious and entertaining… a heady mix of love story, prediction, satire and lyrical adventure.”
Sunday Times

“Compelling…. Clearly there is a powerful environmentalist message to the novel, but Wright has constructed a narrative strong enough to carry it without strain…. [His] description of a deserted London overgrown with tropical vegetation is unforgettable.”
Toronto Star

Publishers in English: Picador USA; Knopf Canada; Anchor (UK & Australia)
Foreign editions in French, German, Polish, Croatian.

Reviews

“Superb. The ingredients of the Wright style… transform each piece
from a trip into an exploration.”
NOW Magazine

“Magic… one of Canada’s most seasoned and eloquent travellers.”
Maclean’s

“A sort of greatest hits collection… he writes a hell of a book.”
The Globe and Mail

“I’ll gladly travel with Ronald Wright wherever he goes.”
Washington Post

An international bestseller, Stolen Continents is a history of the Americas unlike any other. This fascinating volume chronicles the conquest and arrival of five great American cultures—in their own words. Ronald Wright give voice to the Aztec, Maya, Inca, Cherokee, and Iroquois, quoting their authentic speech and writing and illuminating their strange, tragic experience—including, in a new afterward, incidents that bring us into the twenty-first century. Covering the more than five hundred years since Europeans first set foot in the New World, Wright weaves contemporary accounts with his own incisive historical narrative to created an indispensable record, on that is powerful, vivid, and accurate.

Order Stolen Continents.
For American purchases
Overseas buyers, please refer to Amazon.
Or, better yet, buy and order from your local, independent bookstore.

Honours

Gordon Montador Award
CBA Nomination Author of the Year 1992

Reviews

“A counter-history that challenges all of our comfortable assumptions.”
Los Angeles Times

“Fine and Thought Provoking.”
Washington Post

“Excellent… Redresses the balance between the invaders and the invaded.”
Sunday Times

“Shows the devastation perpetrated by Columbus and others on the native peoples of the Americas.”
New York Times Book Review

“Wright goes about his task with white-hot passion.”
Los Angeles Times

“Wright is a historical philosopher with a profound understanding of other cultures: this book is a balanced and moving contribution to the vicious debate aroused.”
Independent

“Clear and concise history detailing the experiences of Native Americans on both continents from 1492 to 1990, from travel-writer and Mayan specialist Wright (Time Among the Maya, 1989; On Fiji Islands, 1986; etc.). Rather than attempt a comprehensive rendering of the centuries of genocide practiced by those who came in the wake of Columbus, Wright sensibly opts to present a few of the “highlights”. The savagery practiced against five major cultures—the Maya, Inca, Aztec, Cherokee, and Iroquois—and their responses appear in three stages, encompassing five hundred years: the initial periods of contact in each case; the hard and bloody struggles of these peoples once the battle was joined; and the modern phase, in which resistance continues along with the resolve to endure. Using contemporary native accounts wherever possible, in the belief that the white version has been heard often enough, Wright recounts Montezuma’s failed strategy to welcome Cortez as an equal, which led to his palace becoming a prison; the Cherokee Nation’s willingness two centuries later to emulate Western civilization, which only brought forced removal to Oklahoma and death along the Trail of Tears; and other base betrayals. Even with their societies largely destroyed, however, retention of an indigenous identity for the Incan descendants in Peru and their Mayan counterparts in Guatemala, and events such as last year’s tense standoff between defiant Iroquois and thousands of Canadian troops can be seen, Wright says, as evidence that a determined native resistance continues. Familiar facts but a distinctive viewpoint: an intensely partisan chronicle of centuries of dishonor, written in a fluid, vivid style.”
Kirkus Reviews

Format: Paperback, 430 pages
Publisher: Penguin Canada
ISBN 10: 0-143-01500-1
ISBN 13: 978-0-143-01500-0

In Time Among the Maya, Ronald Wright’s journey takes him not only to the land of the Maya, but also among the five million people who speak Maya languages and preserve a Mayan identity today. His travels begin in tiny Belize, exploring the jungles and mountains of Guatemala, bloodstained by civil war, and end in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Embracing history, politics, anthropology, and literature, this book is both a fascinating travel memoir and the study of a civilization.

Order Time Among the Maya
For American purchases
Overseas buyers, please refer to Amazon.
Or, better yet, buy and order from your local, independent bookstore.

Honours

A Trillium Book Award winner.

Reviews

“Time Among the Maya shows Ronald Wright to be . . . an historical philosopher with a profound understanding of other cultures.”
Jan Morris

“Wright’s unpretentious narrative blends anthropology, archaeology, history, and politics with his own entertaining excursions and encounters, and . . . teaches us a lot about the way a culture endures.”
The New Yorker

“Marking his time with the ancient Mayan calendar, a travel writer explores the ruins and villages of Belize, Guatemala and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. He ‘weaves strands of popular anthropology, Guatemala’s politics of menace and odd encounters with half-assimilated Indians as though he were creating his own serape…’”
The New York Times, New and Noteworthy

Format: Paperback, 464 pages
Publisher: Penguin Canada
ISBN-10: 0-805-01470-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-143-05437-5

Reviews

“Ronald Wright’s skills as an ethnologist, political historian, and travel writer have found an ideal outlet… an excellent book.”
The Independent

“Mr. Wright combines the expert travel writer’s techniques… with a skeptical curiosity… Persuasive and evocative prose.”
The New York Times Book Review

“An instant success, [Cut Stones and Crossroads: A Journey in the Two Worlds of Peru) took its place among-side older classics in the Penguin Travel Library. His new book in not only a worthy successor, but probably better.”
The Guardian

“Part travel memoir, part history and anthropology, this is a compelling story.”
Publishers Weekly

“This is a fine travel book, personal without being pretentious, open-eyed without being naive, and I’ll gladly travel with Wright wherever he goes next.”
Washington Post Book World

“Within the last 150 years, Fiji, the original “Cannibal Islands,” has been colonized and Christianized and has seen a huge importation of Indian laborers. Despite all these dramatic changes, the Fijians have retained their own land and culture. Intrigued by this unique history, anthropologist Wright traveled extensively throughout the Islands, visiting both cities bustling with Indian merchants and quiet Fijian villages in the remote interior. He vividly describes his experiences. However, this is not just a travel book but a weaving of contemporary impressions with underlying history. Wright feels that it is impossible to understand current Fijian culture and problems without a grasp of the past. The result is a compelling combination of travelogue and history book. An excellent bibliography is appended.”
Library Journal

Format: Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN 10: 0-140-09551-9
ISBN 13: 978-0-140-09551-7

In his highly entertaining and perceptive account, Wright brings to life a complex culture, a land of ancient traditions seeking its place in the modern world. Embracing history, politics, anthropology and literature, Cut Stones and Crossroads is both a fascinating travel memoir and the study of a civilization by a writer who has won international awards as both a novelist and historian.

Order Cut Stones and Crossroads.
For American purchases
Overseas buyers, please refer to Amazon.
Or, better yet, buy and order from your local, independent bookstore.

Reviews

“There is much to praise in this excellent book.”
Washington Post

“Wright expertly outline the politics and culture of a nations struggling to come to terms with the abrupt collapse of one world and the fitful emergence of the next.”
Globe and Mail

“The book is a marvelous mixture of science and color reporting, antiquities and contemporary politics.”
Christian Science Monitor

“Ronald Wright is a superb travel writer with a vivid historical imagination… [He] describes ‘the two worlds of Peru with vigueur, enthusiasm, affection and a sad, controlled anger.”
The Times Literary Supplement

Format: Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN-10-0-141-00026-0
ISBN-13-978-0-141-00026-8