Taussig's seminal work, "Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing," examines the project of Colonialism as it was carried out in South America. He works to create a space of all-too-real, present terror, followed by a process of healing that readers themselves are supposed to follow. In weaving literature, firsthand accounts, and his own ethnographic work, Taussig strives to create "a mode of perception—a way of seeing through a way of talking--figuring the world through dialogue that comes alive with sudden transformative force in the crannies of everyday life’s pauses and juxtapositions. ... It is an irregular, quavering image of hope, this inscription on the edge of official history" (209). As author, Taussig works to assume the role of the shaman and assigns the reader, in allowing themselves to be absorbed, the role of the patient.