In Search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States, and the Nature of a Region

by Seth Garfield

Chronicling the dramatic history of the Brazilian Amazon during the Second World War, Seth Garfield provides fresh perspectives on contemporary environmental debates. His multifaceted analysis explains how the Amazon became the object of geopolitical rivalries, state planning, media coverage, popular fascination, and social conflict. In need of rubber, a vital war material, the United States spent millions of dollars to revive the Amazon's rubber trade. In the name of development and national security, Brazilian officials implemented public programs to engineer the hinterland's transformation. Migrants from Brazil's drought-stricken Northeast flocked to the Amazon in search of work. In defense of traditional ways of life, longtime Amazon residents sought to temper outside intervention. Garfield's environmental history offers an integrated analysis of the struggles among distinct social groups over resources and power in the Amazon, as well as the repercussions of those wartime conflicts in the decades to come.

Genres: History

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Sean Hinnenkamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a student studying history this provides an exceptional look into the complicated politics between the US and Brazil before, during, and after WII. It speaks extensively of the rubber trade beginning to take shape in the Amazon rain forest, as well as the constant US pseudo imperialism in the region.

Some will find this a bit dry as it is a piece of scholarly work incorporating both history and the environment.

[Mike Emett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Required reading for the "Latin American History" graduate seminar.