"I'm going to break the ashes," yelled one daily drinker to another as their paths crossed early in the morning in the Sri Lankan village Michele Ruth Gamburd calls Naeaegama. The drinker's cryptic comment compared the warming power of alcohol--in the form of his first shot of kasippu, the local moonshine--with the rekindled heat of a kitchen fire. As the adverse effects of globalization have brought poverty to many areas of the world, more people,...