About the Author

William Frej has been photographing indigenous people for more than forty years while living in Indonesia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and other remote, mountainous regions of Asia as a career diplomat with the United States Agency for International Development. His work has been featured in a number of exhibitions, galleries, and museums in the U.S. and Mexico. His recent book of black-and-white photographs, Maya Ruins Revisited: In the Footsteps of Teobert Maler (2020), is the recipient of eight awards, including the Silver Medal from both the Independent Publishers Book Awards and the Moscow International Photography Awards.

Anne Frej is a retired urban planner who focused on feasibility studies and design concepts for real estate projects in the United States, Indonesia, Central Europe, and Central Asia. At the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C., she directed books on real estate development, and at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, she served as a cultural resources planner.

About the Contributors

Edwin Bernbaum, Ph.D., is a lecturer, author, and scholar of comparative religion and mythology whose work focuses on the relationship between culture and the environment. He is the author of Sacred Mountains of the World (1990), which won the Commonwealth Club of California's gold medal for best work of nonfiction, and The Way to Shambala (1989), a study of Tibetan myths and legends of hidden valleys and their symbolism.