'Superb history'

'John Hemming's loving knowledge of the Amazon's forests and tribes is compelling...'

'...for anyone who wants a single-volume introduction to the world's greatest river, this is the best they will find.'

'Gripping and colourful (although sometimes shocking)...fresh and original in its approach'

'Hemmings shows himself as an able cartographer of the Amazon's history...a heady mix.'

'Everything you ever wanted to know..." Robin Hanbury-Tenison

'An important book...says almost everything there is to say about Amazonia in a single volume.'

This enthralling book brilliantly describes the passionate struggles that have taken place in order to utilize, protect and understand the wonder that is the Amazon. Hemmings riveting account recalls the adventures and misadventures down the centuries of the explorers, missionaries, indigenous Indians, naturalists, rubber barons, scientists, anthropologists, archaeologists, political extremists, prospectors and many more, who have been in thrall to the Amazon, the largest river in the world, with the greatest expanse of tropical rain forest and most luxuriant biological diversity on earth.