Land Without Evil: Utopian Journeys Across the South American Watershed

by Richard Gott

All too often, travel writers plunge into seemingly obscure parts of the globe with little knowledge of where they are, whom they are among or what has happened there in the past. In this trend-breaking anti-travel book, Richard Gott describes his own journey thru the heart of S. America, across the swampland that forms the watershed between the River Plate & the River Amazon. But the story of his expedition takes 2nd place to a brilliant resurrection of the historical events in the area over 500 years, of the people who have lived there & the visitors who have made the same journey. The land crossed by the Upper Paraguay river once formed the contested frontier in S. America between Spanish & Portuguese territory. The Portuguese sent expeditions thru it in attempts to reach the Spanish silver mines of the Andes, & the Jesuits (supported by the monarch in Madrid) established strategic hamlets--the famous Indian missions--to stabilize the frontier. But this wasn't the beginning or end of conflict in the area. Earlier, the Guarani-speaking Indian nations of Paraguay had made violent contact across the swamp with the Quechua-speakers of the Inca empire; later, after the departure of the Spaniards, the 19th century witnessed a prolonged period of purposeful extermination of the local peoples. Since the Spanish conquest, the area has seen an endless procession of newcomers pursuing unsuitable & utopian programmes of economic & social development that have inevitably ended in disaster for the local population. Intermingling accounts of his own travels over many years with those of Jesuit priests, Spanish conquistadores & Portuguese Mamelukes, together with those of other visitors such as Alcides D'Orbigny, Theodore Roosevelt & Claude Levi-Strauss, Gott weaves a complex web of narrative that brings to life the almost unknown frontier land of Brazil, Bolivia & Paraguay.

Genres: History, Travel

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

While my stepbrother attended Shimer College I visited on several occasions, both socially and as a candidate for a teaching position there. Shimer, a small great books school, was at that time an extraordinary institution. All teachers administered. All administrators taught. Everyone made the same salary. A general assembly of all staff, trustees, students and interested alumni served as the ultimate authority--though alumni lacked the vote. All students took the same curriculum in the same order so that books were purchased by the bag, not individually, and every student of a given class was familiar with the same books. Consequently, Shimer had a tight, generally idealistic community united both intellectually and in terms of polity. Visits, owing to the quality of conversations there, were a delight.

Of all my brother's closest friends, I became closest to one John McGough, close enough that he would come down to Chicago on weekends to stay at my place without the mediation of my brother. He was exceptionally companionable. Both of us would study together in local cafes all day, then go out drinking after a sparse, jerry-rigged meal--or, for a treat, we'd pack some hard-boiled eggs and bread, then go for a walk that would last for hours.

After graduating, John moved down to the city, obtaining an apartment with two other Shimerians. He lived here for a few years before going on to graduate study at Duquesne. When he was packing up to go, seeing my interest in the attractive book jacket to Land Without Evil, he gave me the book. It was big and he had to travel light. I read it in his honor only learning much later that he'd never gotten around to it.