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Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics (Politics of Place, #1)

by Tim Marshall

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May 26, 2022 04:30PM

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The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey

by Candice Millard

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David H said: " I don’t usually start a book review with a reference to its acknowledgements, but in this case it’s justified. After reading the first hundred pages of Millard’s account of Theodore Roosevelt’s 1913-14 expedition almost 1,000 miles down a treacherous I don’t usually start a book review with a reference to its acknowledgements, but in this case it’s justified. After reading the first hundred pages of Millard’s account of Theodore Roosevelt’s 1913-14 expedition almost 1,000 miles down a treacherous, unmapped river in the Amazon, I found myself asking: how on earth did she pull together the story, with its twisting, suspenseful plot and larger-than-life characters?
The answer: systematic research, as impressive in its breadth as in its depth. In her acknowledgements, Millard graciously thanks experts from several disciplines, including anthropology, botany, ornithology and tropical medicine, for their assistance and insights, but the book would not be what it is if she had not made her own long, purposeful expedition through archives and collections in the United States and Brazil to painstakingly piece together the written accounts of the expedition’s members.
Roosevelt, who had served two terms in the White House after the assassination of President McKinley in 1901, was still smarting from his defeat as the Progressive Party candidate in the 1912 election. This was to be the latest physical challenge in a career that had included ranching in the Dakotas, leading the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War, and big game hunting in Africa. It did not take much to persuade him to abandon the original plan for a trip along South American rivers that had already been explored and mapped. Brazil’s foreign minister Lauro Müller proposed an expedition down an unknown river. It was, writes Millard, “so remote and mysterious that its very name was a warning to would-be explorers: Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt.”
Millard deftly describes the mutual respect and the tensions between Roosevelt and the expedition’s leader, Colonel Candido Rondon. The commander of Brazil’s Strategic Telegraph Commission had spent half his life exploring the Amazon and was committed to protecting its indigenous peoples. For him, the priority was to map the river, its course, tributaries, and topography. Roosevelt was in a hurry to get down the river; Rondon needed time to conduct surveys. Both men showed strength, courage, and commitment. Because Roosevelt is the better known, and wrote extensively about the expedition, his role is better documented, yet Rondon, Millard notes, “remains one of Brazil’s greatest heroes,” celebrated for his explorations and advocacy for indigenous groups.

The New York sponsors and quartermaster wanted to make sure that an expedition led by a former US president had all that it needed, without any consideration of mule, canoe, or human capacity. The expedition set out for the long overland trek across the Mato Grosso highlands with more than 360 boxes and crates on two mule trains. By the time it reached a small telegraph station and put in on the river, much of the baggage, including the carefully packed cases of olive oil and mustard, stuffed olives and Rhine wine, had been abandoned as the mules expired. From that point on, the expedition was constantly downsizing.
A harder choice than shedding supplies was shedding men. The expedition did not have enough dugout canoes for all its members, and needed Rondon’s soldiers, the camaradas, to do the hard work of paddling and portage. Some expedition members went home, some were reassigned to a less challenging river route. Roosevelt’s son Kermit and the naturalist George Cherrie accompanied him on the descent of the River of Doubt.
Time and again, the expedition encountered churning rapids, and had to decide whether to run them, risking lives or the loss of dugouts and supplies, or to hack its way through the forest on a portage that could take several days. For most of their journey downstream, the men were silently observed by the Cinta Larga (Portuguese for “wide belt”), an indigenous group that could have finished them off quickly with poisoned arrows but decided to let them pass. In the rain forest, they had little luck hunting game, and even less luck fishing in the river. On many days, they were soaked to the skin by the heavy rain and attacked by swarms of insects. By the time they reached the first rough settlements of rubber tappers, they were thin and wracked with fever. Roosevelt, suffering from malaria and a badly abscessed leg wound, came close to dying.
The constant presence in the plot is the relentless, unforgiving Amazon rain forest. Millard, a former writer and editor for National Geographic magazine, authoritatively and expertly analyzes its complex plant and animal life and interdependent ecosystems. In her narrative, the rain forest literally comes alive, sometimes loud and threatening, sometimes dark and foreboding. For the expedition members, it seemed simply overwhelming, physically and psychologically impenetrable.
We can be thankful that Roosevelt and other expedition members diligently recorded not only the details of their journey, but their feelings, hopes and fears. Millard deserves major credit for creatively pulling together their writings into a compelling narrative. The River of Doubt is a real page-turner.
David Mould, Professor Emeritus, Media Arts & Studies, Ohio University ...more "

May 26, 2022 04:35PM · see review