Russell Hitt tells the true story of missionaries who came to the New Guinea in 1954. They hoped to bring Christianity to Dani tribespeople whose practices included not only cannibalism but also "wife-stealing, orgiastic feasts, [and] barbaric funeral rites." In one particularly powerful chapter, "Cannibal Feast," he describes the reaction of a missionary named Ed Maxey as a fallen warrior is butchered. Ed's son Buzz remains in the valley to this day, and he told me that although many Dani

—Mitchell Zuckoff