By the highest standards, Assault on Paradise ranks among the best and most complete modern ethnographic accounts ever written. In a rich narrative style, it chronicles the rapid social and economic change in Arembepe, a once-isolated coastal fishing village in Brazil where the author first conducted anthropological fieldwork more than fifty years ago. With emphasis on the impact of globalization, technology, and mass media, the current edition extends stories of people and events as well as internal and external changes.

Readers quickly feel a part of the evolving community of Arembepe and the author’s close friends and informants. As one reviewer put it, “The people and personalities come through in a very human and often amusing way. This isn’t ethnography with the people taken out.” The well-structured, jargon-free coverage makes it ideal for use in introductory anthropology courses.