Lotte Hughes is a freelance journalist and historian, with a particular interest in the Maasai of east Africa and oral history. She has written about development and human rights issues for newspapers and NGOs and won the John Morgan Writing Award.

This guide looks beyond the exotic images tracing the story of different indigenous people from their first contact with explorers and colonizers to the present day. Much of this story is told by the indigenous people themselves and they present the issues behind the challenge to give them their own space in their own lands.