I'd thought this book might be similar to John Edward Huth's The Lost Art of Finding Our Way. O'Connor does interview Huth and they do talk about some of the same groups, but her approach is a bit different.

O'Connor uses the experiences of Inuit, Aboriginal and Polynesian cultures to illustrate different aspects of scientific inquiry into how human's approach getting around in the world. For the Inuit, this involves intense knowledge of what to our eyes might seem a barren environment, using patterns in the snow and ice to determine wind and travel directions. For the long-distance sailors of Oceania, it's their ability to read waves and currents and their relationships to stars. And for the the Aboriginal people, it's the stories and songs attached to various pathways handed down from the Dreaming.

Each of these are described in the context of experiments created to figure out how we know about the world around us and how we travel through it. Much of it involves the hippocampus, which turns out to be quite malleable. But like many parts of our bodies, it can wither with disuse -- a point O'Connor makes in discussing how modern navigation technology is removing us from our environment.

The final chapter is filled with tips from the various experts she's interviewed on being more mindful about our environment and becoming attuned to our surroundings and the ways we make our way through them. It was thoughtful way to end the book.

Strangely, for a book about finding one's way in the world, there aren't any illustrations or maps in this book. Oh -- maybe that's the point...