Nettles (women and gender studies, U. of California, Davis) combines the results of her time with women of the Red Thread Women's Development Organisation in Guyana with her own personal odyssey. Telling the story in the form of diaries, she describes her own intellectual and social background and her expectations before her arrival in Guyana. As she is the same race and gender as the women she interviewed, she anticipated there would be a natural bond but instead discovered that there was a wide cultural difference between them. The stories the women told her are mingled with Nettles' increasing awareness of assumptions and preconceptions that she needed to discard in order to meet these women on an equal footing. Her journey is one the reader can identify with. This would be a perfect gift for a research sociologist or anthropologist about to head out on a first field assignment. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)