It has been said that our era will see the beginning of a new period in world history, the 'Age of the Indigenous Peoples', a reassertion of the "third world's" identity in reaction to the imperial and colonial expansion which dominated international relations of the past few centuries. With few exceptions, colonialism has wreaked havoc on native peoples, killing or displacing large populations, exploiting resources, demarcating arbitrary national boundaries, and leaving regions economically and politically dependent on former imperial powers. Yet this multicultural contact has also fostered a new global consciousness and facilitated the rise of international institutions that have given political substance to the belief in universal human rights. Already one can see civil wars and popular uprisings throughout the developing world sparked by the unstable mixture of foreign-sponsored despots and democratic or socialist ideas. Meanwhile, historians today are being forced to reexamine fundamental assumptions regarding the European incursion on the rest of the world. To speak of 'civilizing the primitives' or 'saving the souls of the heathens' is not only intellectually naive, such euphemisms are repugnant to the modern sense of morality. Western society faces a critical point in history. Disillusioned with past conquests and faced with unprecedented possibilities for future catastrophe, we must strive for a new understanding of the indigenous cultures so alienated and embittered by our predecessors' misconceptions (Achebe vii). Fortunately, real positive change is already in motion. Conscientious individuals are joining together in voicing opposition to state actions, allying themselves with unfamiliar ethnic and religious groups in exotic regions. Out of this cultural ferment, great artists emerge to reveal new truths and new values, and to reaffirm that which is most universal in t...