Ishmael is the first book in Daniel Quinn's Ishmael Trilogy. These books serve as springboard for the mind; allowing you to look around and see things that you have always known are there, but never really thought about. It allows you to see "modern" culture as compared to the cultures of what we consider primitave peoples. I highly recomend this book, as well as the two others in the Ishmael Trilogy: The Story of B and My Ishmael.