Susanna B. Hecht

A “compelling and elegantly written” history of the fight for the Amazon basin and the work of a brilliant but overlooked Brazilian intellectual (Times Literary Supplement, UK).

The fortunes of the late nineteenth century’s imperial powers depended on a single raw material—rubber—with only one source: the Amazon basin. This scenario ignited a decades-long conflict that found Britain, France, Belgium, and the United States fighting with and against the new nations of Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil for the forest’s riches. In the midst of this struggle, the Brazilian author and geographer Euclides da Cunha led a survey expedition to the farthest reaches of the river. 

The Scramble for the Amazon tells the story of da Cunha’s terrifying journey, the unfinished novel born from it, and the global strife that formed the backdrop for both. Haunted by his broken marriage, da Cunha trekked through a beautiful region thrown into chaos by guerrilla warfare, starving migrants, and native slavery. All the while, he worked on his masterpiece, a nationalist synthesis of geography, philosophy, biology, and journalism entitled Lost Paradise. 

Hoping to unveil the Amazon’s explorers, spies, natives, and brutal geopolitics, Da Cunha was killed by his wife’s lover before he could complete his epic work. once the biography of Da Cunha, a translation of his unfinished work, and a chronicle of the social, political, and environmental history of the Amazon, The Scramble for the Amazon is a work of thrilling intellectual ambition.

The University of Chicago Press

The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha

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