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Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon
The explosive and highly controversial National Book Award finalist that has forever changed the discipline of anthropology. Thought to be the last "virgin" people, the Yanomami were considered the most savage and warlike tribe on earth, as well as one of the most remote, secreted in the jungles and highlands of the Venezuelan and Brazilian rainforest. Preeminent anthropologists like Napoleon Chagnon and Jacques Lizot founded their careers in the 1960s by "discovering" the Yanomami's ferocious warfare and sexual competition. Their research is now examined in painstaking detail by Patrick Tierney, whose book has prompted the American Anthropological Association to launch a major investigation into the charges, and has ignited the academic world like no other book in recent years. The most important book on anthropology in decades, Darkness in El Dorado will be a work to be reckoned with by a new generation of students the world over. A National Book Award finalist; a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year, and a Boston Globe Best Book of the Year. 16 pages of b/w photographs. "In many respects, the most important book ever written about the Yanomami...."―Leslie Sponsel, University of Hawaii "An astonishing tale of scientific vainglory and blinding pride....Subtly argued and powerfully written."―The National Book Award Foundation Judges' Citation "[A] tale of self-interested agendas carried to such extremes as to seem an anthropological Heart of Darkness ."― Los Angeles Times "Best Books of 2000" "[W]ill become a classic in anthropological literature, sparking countless debates."― The New York Times Book Review , John Horgan "Its most immediate effect may be to provoke a needed dialogue on the crucial importance of informed consent in anthropology."― The Chronicle of Higher Education , Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban "An enthralling and well-researched look at the unscrupulous practices of anthropology and journalism."― Booklist , Vanessa Bush "Copiously annotated and well documented... the culmination of a decade-long study of what Tierney claims is false science."― Publishers Weekly starred review "Nowhere is there a better case study of the effects of intervention on tribal peoples..."― Christian Science Monitor "[A] brilliant and shocking book....This book should shake anthropology to its very foundations."―Terrence Collins, Carnegie Mellon University "An extremely important contribution."―John Frechione, University of Pittsburgh "[C]arefully researched and documented...reveals an interlocking series of scandals that constitute the most flagrant violations of scientific ethics..."―Terrence Turner, Carnegie Mellon University "[A] devastatingly truthful story of massive genocide in contemporary times."―Chief Wilma Mankiller, Board Member, The Ford Foundation "The case of Napoleon Chagnon, as harrowingly documented by Patrick Tierney, appears to be an archetypal and unbelievably appalling one."―Alex Shoumatoff, author of The Rivers Amazon, and The World is Burning 16 pages of black and whtie photographs
431 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
March 23, 2008
There are two camps--those who support Chagnon and those who don't. He's one of those guys you love or hate--few people fall between.
Tierney's rant in this book is from the view point of a self-aggrandized graduate student who was shunned by his professor. Reading between the lines, in my view only--I certainly have no proof of this--Chagnon saw Tierny as a whimpy adolescent in need of toughening up, and put him in a position in the jungle to do just that. I can invision the scenario. In the jungle, Tierny tells Chagnon how something should be done. Chagnon says, fine, do it that way--and leaves the pesky graduate student to do it his way, at his own peril. Chagnon leaves without a backward glance. Tierney, the inveterate mama's boy, is left alone in the jungle to fend for himself. A hard lesson? That depends. Tierny was certainly not the first person in the jungle to be left on his own.
But, did Tierny toughen up? Well, that's a matter of opinion. He certainly drew attention of the anthropological and political world to his plight--at least on a very small scale. Tierny's life focus became that of discrediting Chagnon--easy enough to do because Chagnon himself is a bombastic blow-hard who enjoys his rum--and spent his much of his adult life in the part of the world where they make the very best rums.
Tierny meticulously "researched" the "evidence" and (at the exhaustion of the reader) sensationalized, and overstated the significance of unsubstantiated information. Often his "evidence" came from the verbal accounts of forest people of various loyalties who, (if you've ever lived in the jungle of South America you know) ultimately their allegiance is to the person who will give them the most stuff--especially if it is an out board motor.
I've lived roughly a few hundred miles from the events in theses stories, both as a child and as an adult. Forest people tell you what YOU want to hear. When they were with Tierny, they would have told him what made Tierny smile--and give them gifts. When they were with Chagnon--well, you get the picture. But forest people are good people--some of them are my best friends, as the saying goes. Forest people just see you, me, Tierny, and Chagnon as their "WalMart"--guaranteed.
So, what is the value of Tierny's life work? It may make future anthropologists think twice before they attempt to play doctor and save lives in the midst of a measles outbreak. It got Chagnon banned from doing future work in the Venezuela jungle--so now he can no longer swelter in the malaria ridden rain forest in grossly uncomfortably surroundings--and is now relegated to the discomforts of Santa Barbara, California to do his work. And what else? The book probably makes Tierny feel much much better, now that he's vented his spleen--whatever that means.
Tierney's rant in this book is from the view point of a self-aggrandized graduate student who was shunned by his professor. Reading between the lines, in my view only--I certainly have no proof of this--Chagnon saw Tierny as a whimpy adolescent in need of toughening up, and put him in a position in the jungle to do just that. I can invision the scenario. In the jungle, Tierny tells Chagnon how something should be done. Chagnon says, fine, do it that way--and leaves the pesky graduate student to do it his way, at his own peril. Chagnon leaves without a backward glance. Tierney, the inveterate mama's boy, is left alone in the jungle to fend for himself. A hard lesson? That depends. Tierny was certainly not the first person in the jungle to be left on his own.
But, did Tierny toughen up? Well, that's a matter of opinion. He certainly drew attention of the anthropological and political world to his plight--at least on a very small scale. Tierny's life focus became that of discrediting Chagnon--easy enough to do because Chagnon himself is a bombastic blow-hard who enjoys his rum--and spent his much of his adult life in the part of the world where they make the very best rums.
Tierny meticulously "researched" the "evidence" and (at the exhaustion of the reader) sensationalized, and overstated the significance of unsubstantiated information. Often his "evidence" came from the verbal accounts of forest people of various loyalties who, (if you've ever lived in the jungle of South America you know) ultimately their allegiance is to the person who will give them the most stuff--especially if it is an out board motor.
I've lived roughly a few hundred miles from the events in theses stories, both as a child and as an adult. Forest people tell you what YOU want to hear. When they were with Tierny, they would have told him what made Tierny smile--and give them gifts. When they were with Chagnon--well, you get the picture. But forest people are good people--some of them are my best friends, as the saying goes. Forest people just see you, me, Tierny, and Chagnon as their "WalMart"--guaranteed.
So, what is the value of Tierny's life work? It may make future anthropologists think twice before they attempt to play doctor and save lives in the midst of a measles outbreak. It got Chagnon banned from doing future work in the Venezuela jungle--so now he can no longer swelter in the malaria ridden rain forest in grossly uncomfortably surroundings--and is now relegated to the discomforts of Santa Barbara, California to do his work. And what else? The book probably makes Tierny feel much much better, now that he's vented his spleen--whatever that means.
November 17, 2020
Follow the link. You'll be enlightened.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...
March 15, 2012
A withering critique of the excesses of anthropology. Tierney spent ten years writing this book about the effects of ethnographic and journalistic interest in the Yanomami peoples of Venezuela. His acid criticism is aimed principally at Napoleon Chagnon, one of the most famous anthropologists of all time, and describes his hubris, arrogance, and bald lack of concern for his subjects of study in the most unflattering possible light. Also coming in for a detailed and exhaustively documented flaying are French anthopologist Jacques Lizot, several BBC and National Geographic film crews, and several playboy Venezuelan naturalists and politicians. The gist: Althought the Yanomamo are known in the literature as the "Fierce People", this title is more a function of the sociobiological ideology of the ethnographer than of any empirically greater rate of violence. This is science at its worst. A brilliant book, totally readable, enraging.
March 14, 2008
There's a twenty year cycle in anthropology. The reigning theorist are revealed as creepy frauds, and their teachings cast out. Happens like clockwork. I was a freshman, just as Mead as being discredited. And devoured books by the likes of Chagnon. Still find myself siding with the "genetic determinist" camp more often than not. But even then saw it at inadequate.
In the 1950s, the amazon was cultural goldmine. A small team of anthropologist staked their claim. And caused as much damage as any vilified corporation. From provoking fights, to spreading disease, to rumors of sexual exploitation. As one who spent too many years on a college campus, and got a look at the lives of academics, I was depressed to learn that they're just as messed up out in the deep jungle.
In the 1950s, the amazon was cultural goldmine. A small team of anthropologist staked their claim. And caused as much damage as any vilified corporation. From provoking fights, to spreading disease, to rumors of sexual exploitation. As one who spent too many years on a college campus, and got a look at the lives of academics, I was depressed to learn that they're just as messed up out in the deep jungle.
June 13, 2020
Admirers of Patrick Tierney should read this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
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January 6, 2023"This nightmarish story..." wrote anthropologists Terrence Turner and Leslie Sponsel of Darkness in El Dorado, "will be seen (rightly in our view) by the public, as well as most anthropologists, as putting the whole discipline on trial.... This book should shake anthropology to its very foundations. It should cause the field to understand how the corrupt and depraved protagonists could have spread their poison for so long while they were accorded great respect throughout the Western World and generations of undergraduates received their lies as the introductory substance of anthropology. This should never be allowed to happen again."
Turner and Sponsel were right. Just not in the way they intended to be. Darkness in El dorado did indeed shake the foundations of anthropology and put the whole discipline on trial. And the verdict was rightfully guilty. But the actual defendants—the real corrupt and depraved protagonists who spread their poison and lies to generations of undergraduates, while being accorded great respect throughout the Western World—were, in this case, Turner and Sponsel themselves, together with Patrick Tierney, the author of this disgraceful and defamatory book. The upshot is a cautionary tale about how a scientific discipline is destroyed when its practitioners turn it into a religion.
This should indeed never be allowed to happen again. But let’s not kid ourselves. It will.
See also: The Blank slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker, and Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes--The Yanomamo and the Anthropologists by Napoleon Chagnon.
Turner and Sponsel were right. Just not in the way they intended to be. Darkness in El dorado did indeed shake the foundations of anthropology and put the whole discipline on trial. And the verdict was rightfully guilty. But the actual defendants—the real corrupt and depraved protagonists who spread their poison and lies to generations of undergraduates, while being accorded great respect throughout the Western World—were, in this case, Turner and Sponsel themselves, together with Patrick Tierney, the author of this disgraceful and defamatory book. The upshot is a cautionary tale about how a scientific discipline is destroyed when its practitioners turn it into a religion.
This should indeed never be allowed to happen again. But let’s not kid ourselves. It will.
See also: The Blank slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker, and Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes--The Yanomamo and the Anthropologists by Napoleon Chagnon.
June 21, 2017
People have attacked this book, but it is investigative journalism the way it is supposed to be done. I don't think the author is right on all counts, but it certainly brings to light some serious problems with several major anthropologists.
April 27, 2023
Conclusively debunked, not worth anyone’s time.
do-not-read
April 14, 2021I do not usually write a review for books that I have not read, so I will just leave these two links instead:
https://quillette.com/2019/10/05/the-...
Galileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science
https://quillette.com/2019/10/05/the-...
Galileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science
January 31, 2014
A well-written, exhaustively researched book on a significant subject that is almost ruined by Tierney's obsession with Napoleon Chagnon and his monomaniacal need to link Chagnon to a vast conspiracy involving the Atomic Energy Commission. Tierney's outrageous charges that Chagnon and his mentor James Neel not only exploited the Yanomami for their personal aggrandizement but almost wiped the tribe out by fomenting warfare and causing a devastating measles epidemic got him in deep trouble with the American Anthropological Association, who ultimately discredited Darkness in El Dorado in its entirety. This is a great pity, because the book holds up well without its earth shaking conclusions that Neel and Chagnon are callous, unscrupulous murderers. It would have been a good, if not a great book had Tierney merely described Chagnon's bull-in-a-china shop approach to anthropological research without going into any dark theories. Chagnon's drawing of blood from every living Yanomama he could get his hands on, his filming of fights to the death he to some extent caused then staged, his subjugation of an ancient and noble people to the fictive wars between cultural anthropology and what he calls sociobiology, all this is more than enough to implicate Chagnon in the devastation of the culture he studied. Chagnon's own book, Noble Savages, which came out last year, carries on this quixotic battle, assuming that it's impossible to combine evolutionary psychology with traditional ethnographic research. Chagnon loves to settle old scores with both his academic rivals and people in the forest who he thinks opposed him. Tierney covered this well, and in the process wrote one of the best books ever written about what anthropologists call emic vs. etic research. In the former the researcher lives with his subjects, interacts with them on a human level, and as far as possible lets them speak for themselves. The etic researcher is an indefatigable data collector, not caring how he acquires his numbers as long as they get him publications in peer-reviewed journals and tenure. The best parts of Darkness in El Dorado are the descriptions of the boorish, egomaniacal invasion of Yanomami territory by Chagnon and his henchmen. They blew the roofs off shabonos (large communal round houses) with the wings of their helicopters. They created murderous competition by giving away machetes and other weapons to people who would disclose the information they wanted. They made films designed not to to show life as it is lived in the villages, but the kind of violence Chagnon promoted in his "Fierce People" theories. They may not have fomented a measles epidemic by administering obsolete vaccines without antibodies, but they did collect vast amounts of blood in order to prove Neel's eugenic theories, which came to absolutely nothing but which Chagnon thought made him a Scientist with a capital S. As over against these aggressive intruders, Tierney counterposes a small group of emic writers, centering on Helena Valero. She wrote two books about her childhood capture by the tribe and how she came to identify with its culture. Then there is Kenneth Good, who broke with Chagnon and lived for at least eight years in a village, marrying one of its women. Yarima, Good's wife, is a remarkable character, turning the tables on the Western researchers, including Good himself, by presenting a witty a faux-naif view of their methods. Bursting with ironic humor and wit, Yarmia needs to write a book of her own, and may yet do so with the help of her and Ken's son David (Like The Good Project on Facebook to learn more.) Others, such as Jacques Lizot and Bruce Albert, continue to give us inside reports from the Yanomami themselves. Tierney describes all this well. Had he stuck with it, his book would be a classic. As it is, it resides in the dustbin of discredited critiques, and seems to have destroyed Patrick Tierney as a journalist. He's nowhere to be found on google. But Darkness in El Dorado remains well worth a read. It's greatest value is that it leads to books on the tribe by the authors mentioned above. In that sense, it's a seminal work that ought not be forgotten.
April 12, 2023
The claims of this book have been extensively studied since publication and found to be total fabrications by the author.
April 23, 2011
A scathing criticism of the work of anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon's work studying the Yanomami Indians in Venezuela, it was perhaps not the best introductory text. From other reviews I am given to understand that this book is just as controversial as Chagnon's movies and published works. Unfortunately I have not seen or read anything else on the topic. Regardless of whomever is more "in the right" the main themes are valid: the importance of medical procedures to avoid epidemics among uncontacted peoples, the danger of skewing research to fit predetermined assumptions, and the great impact that new contact has on indigenous people. An easy read I think I might have enjoyed it more (or less) if I had ever taken a research methods/statistics class.
February 6, 2013
Yeah, this is a controversial book. Covers stuff about anthropologists themselves that most "rose tinted glasses" ethnographies don't or won't cover. To be honest: I have no idea if this book is truthful or deceptive, or to what extent either, because I haven't researched the particular issues myself, I've just read some ethnographies of the area. But at least Tierney is talking about devastation in the Amazon, and talking about these issues of how (some) anthropologists (might) behave in the field -- both of which need to be talked about. So, I give it four stars for just doing that.
Two snippets that most caught my attention, as amusing or interesting side-bars: (1) the bit about the Yanomami with cameras filming the Nat Geo crew; and (2) the story about Yarima and Kenneth Good.
Two snippets that most caught my attention, as amusing or interesting side-bars: (1) the bit about the Yanomami with cameras filming the Nat Geo crew; and (2) the story about Yarima and Kenneth Good.
April 9, 2009
This really is a terrific idea for a long magazine piece -- basically an indictment of cultural anthropologists and journalists who used peoples of remotest Amazon to advance their own personal fame and gain.
It has sparked a lot of controversy; charges, counter-charges, etc. While there's little question that the premise is valid, Tierney went too far in making various accusations, which are probably the ones that got him the book deal (that researchers used native people for sex, mislead about the sampling of their blood, etc.).
It is an interesting book, but carries a bit too much of an ax to grind.
It has sparked a lot of controversy; charges, counter-charges, etc. While there's little question that the premise is valid, Tierney went too far in making various accusations, which are probably the ones that got him the book deal (that researchers used native people for sex, mislead about the sampling of their blood, etc.).
It is an interesting book, but carries a bit too much of an ax to grind.
July 3, 2010
Ridiculous and outrageous: This book should be titled 'lies and deception'. Even extreme anthropological Marxists like Ferguson and Harris - whose ideas Tierney uses - have distanced themselves from this work. The book contains consistent rewritings of other writers' work and deceptive misquotings (used in one situation by one author, and then trimmed and applied to another situation). The allegations that scientists and the anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon used a bad measles vaccine to experiment on the Yanomamo was dismissed by an expert on vaccines in minutes. The only interesting question concerning this book is why Norton published it, and why they continue to sell it. Astonishing!
August 6, 2020
A deep dive into what really happened to the Yanomamo when white men and the Atomic Energy Commission decided they would be excellent experimental subjects. A few scientists made their reputation misrepresenting them by staging conflicts and life for the Yanomamo gets worse from there. An excellent read for those interested in tribal protections and the politics of science, especially anthropology, that will make you righteously angry.
September 10, 2012
I have no ability to judge the truth of this book, but the story does make sense. If it is true then there are some very evil people in this world.
November 18, 2022
Fue un libro controvertido, en cualquier caso muy interesante para conocer cómo vivían algunas tribus amazónicas y la influencia recibida de la invasiva cultura occidental.
April 3, 2010
A look at the concepts Jared Diamond described in Guns Germs and Steel applied to a 20th Century situation. Some parts were very interesting, but at times it got a bit tedious. Much of the book was intended to discredit an anthropologist that I'd never heard of. That part wasn't so interesting. But the descriptions of the consequences of the Yanomani's contact with modern civilization were compelling at times.
October 19, 2010
Tierney's axe to grind against Napoleon Chagnon feels like a bit of an academic food fight. But the story of how contact with anthropologists, scientists, and governments decimated the Yanomamo in the Amazon is heartbreaking.
Note: I gave this four stars to balance the one star this book's only other reader gave it. One star? That's just silly.
Note: I gave this four stars to balance the one star this book's only other reader gave it. One star? That's just silly.
July 21, 2013
Interesting book and subject. I will not have much to say until I read Chagnon's book Noble Savages. The writing in the was average at best. The last part about the Atomic commission and Mortality reports at end of book were damned near unreadable. This book is worth the time for the history of what happened. I am really looking forward to Cagnon's reply.
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November 23, 2007I love this book but it's taking me FOREVER to read. I'm determined to be done by Christmas and will be significantly smarter upon completion.
Fancy a trip up the Amazon? Make sure your bring your Clorox, apparently we're a germy bunch!
Fancy a trip up the Amazon? Make sure your bring your Clorox, apparently we're a germy bunch!
December 3, 2008
I've been interested in the Amazon for a long time and fascination is now more accurate than anything else, especially since my 2 trips there. 1/2 way through the book - I'll reflect and write more as it winds down.
April 12, 2011
It feels like there's an interesting story hidden in this Amazonian thicket of a book but I'm not patient enough to find it. Somebody rewrite this as a 6-page New Yorker article (or if one's already been written, point me to it).
January 9, 2009
Anthropologists, oh my!
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews