Wade Davis - One river : explorations and discoveries in the Amazon rain forest

EXPLORATIONS AND
DISCOVERIES
IN THE
AMAZON
RAIN FOREST

Wade Davis

BARBARA M. BACHMAN

JEFFREY L. WARD

PRAISE FORONE RIVER

Catherine Foster, Boston Globe

A wild ride through one rapid after another magnificent.

Richard Gehr, Newsday

An absolutely fascinating look at the field of ethnobotany.

James P. Lucier, The Washington Times

One River is a cross between Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. For sheer adventure, it puts Indiana Jones to shame

Laurence A. Marschall, The Sciences

Daviss riveting prose brings the reader into oneness with the river, the jungle, and the people who explored it.

Extraordinary. A biographical tapestry rich in history, adventure, intrigue, and scholarship.

Publishers Weekly

A consistently enlightening and thought-provoking study.

Kirkus Reviews

A fascinating narrative an exceptional tale of 20th-century scientific exploration and a rousing travelogue to places both real and illusory.

Donna Seaman, Booklist (Editors Choice for one of 1996s best books)

Davis, a compelling writer and intrepid ethnobotanist, proves himself a master of synthesis in this engrossing history of plant exploration in the Amazon.

Sue Sutton, The Financial Post

Who would have thought it: reading a thick volume of botanical history can be an unexpectedly magical and riveting experience.

One River manages to be entertaining, rich with meaning, and full of human biological drama.

John Bremrose, Macleans

One of the richest books ever written about South America. Combining botanical lore, history, sensitive evocations of native cultures and a good deal of old-fashioned adventure, One River is as fascinating and densely varied as the rain forest itself.

Douglas Daly, Audubon

In One River, Davis has forged a rare combination of exploration and unobtrusive scholarship.

Miles Harvey, Outside

One River has a hallucinogenic feel, in which science overlaps with myth, memory mingles with illusion, and time shifts unpredictably. Davis outrageous brand of storytelling is well suited to his larger than life subjects, fusing traditional biography with one of Latin Americas most potent legacies, magic realism.

Jeff Baker, Portland Oregonian

Richard Schultes is the real Indiana Jones, One River is a crackling good story that reads like a combination of Sir Richard Burton, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Richard Haliburtons Book of Marvels. Buy the book and get ready for a great adventure.

Dean Sims, Tulsa World

Although a botanist, Davis is a fine writer and schooled in history.

Broox Sledge, The Neshoba Democrat

An exciting account of an unusual adventure.

David Bezanson, Austin American-Statesman

An epican absorbing combination of adventure, history, botany, and facts and impressions about South American cultures.

Will Nixon, New Age Journal

Restores some rollicking adventure to the jungle, complete with snakebites and tropical illnesses.

Paul R. Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb

This is a wonderful book about a great biologist, Richard Evans Schultes. It is a trip into a time fast disappearing, when biologists were often also explorers, trying to understand the rich biodiversity of our planeta form of natural wealth that is rapidly disappearing.

Andrew Weil, M.D., author of Spontaneous Healing

Wade Davis, one of our most lyrical nature writers, has written the definitive book about the South American rain forest. One River is a spellbinding account of magical places, plants, and people.

Dr. David Suzuki, author and broadcaster

Wade Davis is a rare treasurea professional scientist who writes like a poet. In tracing the adventures of Richard Evans Schultes, his remarkable mentor, Davis enthralls us with the mysteries of the plant kingdom. I couldnt help regretting that I became a zoologist rather than a botanist.

Terence McKenna, author of Food of the Gods

Richard Evans Schultes is one of the last of those biologists and botanists who confronted a planet with vast unexplored tropical regions, and lived out the high adventure of a serious student of tropical nature. Wade Davis tells his story with humor and reverence. One River is a must read.

Peter Raven, Director, Missouri Botanical Garden

Among twentieth-century ethnobotanical explorers; few can begin to approach the accomplishments and influence of Richard Evans Schultes One River is wonderfully compelling, a sprawling account of discovery and high adventure that rivals those of such esteemed naturalist predecessors as Humboldt, Darwin, or Spruce.

Thomas E. Lovejoy, Smithsonian Institution

A captivating tale of stalwart explorers, of mentors and students, drawn alike by the siren call of the tropical forest, its plants and its people. Wade Davis writes from the heart about an intellectual river as old as Socrates and as fresh as this mornings dew: teacher and student, forest and people bound together in a dream one hopes will never end a staggeringly wonderful book.

Edward Hoagland, author of Notes from a Century Before

One River is a densely informative, vibrant book, a lovely labora fine homage to a scarcely describable web of phenomena that once seemed eternal.

David Maybury-Lewis Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University President, Cultural Survival

Wade Davis succeeds in weaving together a suitable tribute to Schultes and his most brilliant student, Tim Plowman, by combining myth, history, indigenous lore, exploration, travelogue, and the most adventurous kind of scientific discovery into a rich narrative that succeeds in conveying both the legendary fascination of the Amazonian rain forest and the importance of Schultess work,

ALSO BY WADE DAVIS

Light at the Edge of the World

Nomads of the Dawn

(with Ian MacKenzie and Shane Kennedy)

Shadows in the Sun

Penan: Voice for the Borneo Rainforest

(with Thorn Henley)

Passage of Darkness

The Serpent and the Rainbow

For Timothy Plowman

1944-1989

SIMON & SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS
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Copyright 1996 by Wade Davis

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Picture Credits

Photographs 1-10 and 12-23 in the photo insert section and illustrations opening chapters 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, and 14 are by Richard Evans Schultes. Photo 24 in the photo section and illustrations for chapters 2, 5, 8, 9, and 13 are by Wade Davis.

Designed by BARBARA M. BACHMAN

Maps by JEFFREY L. WARD

Manufactured in the United States of America

11 13 15 17 19 20 18 16 14 12

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Davis, Wade.

One river: explorations and discoveries in the Amazon rain forest / Wade Davis.