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The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First-Century Amazon
A sweeping look at the war over the Amazon--as activists, locals, and indigenous tribes struggle to save it from the threat of loggers, drug lords, and corrupt cops and politicians
Following doctors and detectives, environmental activists and indigenous tribes, The Third Bank of the River traces the history of the Amazon from the arrival of the first Spanish flotilla to the drones that are now mapping unexplored parts of the forest. Grounded in rigorous firsthand reporting and in-depth research, Chris Feliciano Arnold reveals a portrait of Brazil and the Amazon that is complex, bloody, and often tragic.
During the 2014 world cup, an isolated Amazon tribe emerged from the rain forest on the misty border of Peru and Brazil, escaping massacre at the hands of loggers who wanted their land. A year later, in the jungle capital of Manaus, a bloody weekend of reprisal killings inflame a drug war that has blurred the line between cops and kingpins. Both events reveal the dual struggles of those living in and around the world's largest river. As indigenous tribes lose their ancestral culture and territory to the lure and threat of the outside world, the question arises of how best to save isolated tribes: Keep them away from the modern world or make contact in an effort to save them from extinction? As Brazil looks to be a world leader in the twenty-first century, this magnificent and vast region is mired in chaos and violence that echoes the atrocities that have haunted the rain forest since Europeans first traveled its waters.
Following doctors and detectives, environmental activists and indigenous tribes, The Third Bank of the River traces the history of the Amazon from the arrival of the first Spanish flotilla to the drones that are now mapping unexplored parts of the forest. Grounded in rigorous firsthand reporting and in-depth research, Chris Feliciano Arnold reveals a portrait of Brazil and the Amazon that is complex, bloody, and often tragic.
During the 2014 world cup, an isolated Amazon tribe emerged from the rain forest on the misty border of Peru and Brazil, escaping massacre at the hands of loggers who wanted their land. A year later, in the jungle capital of Manaus, a bloody weekend of reprisal killings inflame a drug war that has blurred the line between cops and kingpins. Both events reveal the dual struggles of those living in and around the world's largest river. As indigenous tribes lose their ancestral culture and territory to the lure and threat of the outside world, the question arises of how best to save isolated tribes: Keep them away from the modern world or make contact in an effort to save them from extinction? As Brazil looks to be a world leader in the twenty-first century, this magnificent and vast region is mired in chaos and violence that echoes the atrocities that have haunted the rain forest since Europeans first traveled its waters.
339 pages, Hardcover
First published June 5, 2018
18 people are currently reading
904 people want to read
About the author
Chris Feliciano Arnold
3 books16 followersChris Feliciano Arnold has written essays and journalism for The Atlantic, Harper's, Foreign Policy, Outside, Vice News, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Folha de S. Paulo, Salon, McSweeney's, The Millions and more. His fiction has been published in Playboy, The Kenyon Review, Ecotone and other magazines. His work has been noted in The Best American Sports Writing and The Best American Short Stories. The recipient of a 2014 creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, he resides in northern California and teaches writing in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco.
His first book, The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First Century Amazon, is a work of narrative nonfiction to be published by Picador USA in June 2018.
His first book, The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First Century Amazon, is a work of narrative nonfiction to be published by Picador USA in June 2018.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
December 4, 2019
This book is a good introductory course on the Amazon. It is part travelogue and history.
The indigenous people in the Amazon basin have been constantly exploited and its population decimated throughout the centuries.
The original Portuguese settlers used them as slaves. Later, when rubber was discovered, there was more exploitation of this cheap labour source. The indigenous tribes were always used as guides for the vast Amazon area and then discarded. This opened their population to European diseases like measles. The immune system of the indigenous people was not prepared to combat these infections and entire tribes could be wiped out in a matter of days. This horrendous problem continues to this day when gifts such as t-shirts can spread potentially fatal diseases.
The latest danger is the growing use and addiction to cocaine if Brazil’s eastern cities. The route the cocaine trade follows is along the Amazon from Columbia and Peru. The drug traffickers are ruthless in areas occupied by remote indigenous people.
There are also anthropological disagreements on how much contact a remote tribe should have with the outside world. With the increasing drug trafficking and resource exploitation, contact, often arbitrary and unethical, is inevitable.
The author also spent time in Manaus on the Amazon River midway between the Atlantic Ocean and the source of the Amazon. The growth of Manaus has been stupendous. It had, in the 1960’s a population of around 400,000, now it is over 2 million. Criminal activity and corruption is rampant.
A favourite quote by Charles de Gaulle (page 219, my book) “Brazil is the country of the future – and it always will be”.
This book gives us a feel for the ongoing development of Brazil and how individual Brazilians adjust to the up and down euphoria constantly present in their country.
As an additional note why do some books, mostly recently published ones, have no index??
The indigenous people in the Amazon basin have been constantly exploited and its population decimated throughout the centuries.
The original Portuguese settlers used them as slaves. Later, when rubber was discovered, there was more exploitation of this cheap labour source. The indigenous tribes were always used as guides for the vast Amazon area and then discarded. This opened their population to European diseases like measles. The immune system of the indigenous people was not prepared to combat these infections and entire tribes could be wiped out in a matter of days. This horrendous problem continues to this day when gifts such as t-shirts can spread potentially fatal diseases.
The latest danger is the growing use and addiction to cocaine if Brazil’s eastern cities. The route the cocaine trade follows is along the Amazon from Columbia and Peru. The drug traffickers are ruthless in areas occupied by remote indigenous people.
There are also anthropological disagreements on how much contact a remote tribe should have with the outside world. With the increasing drug trafficking and resource exploitation, contact, often arbitrary and unethical, is inevitable.
The author also spent time in Manaus on the Amazon River midway between the Atlantic Ocean and the source of the Amazon. The growth of Manaus has been stupendous. It had, in the 1960’s a population of around 400,000, now it is over 2 million. Criminal activity and corruption is rampant.
A favourite quote by Charles de Gaulle (page 219, my book) “Brazil is the country of the future – and it always will be”.
This book gives us a feel for the ongoing development of Brazil and how individual Brazilians adjust to the up and down euphoria constantly present in their country.
As an additional note why do some books, mostly recently published ones, have no index??
June 1, 2018
Arnold, adopted as a child from Brazil, returns as a journalist, and captures much cultural conflict, crime, and ferment in clear journalism and memoir. Many stories intertwine: gang wars, the death of cultures including the Yanomamo, political history, and Arnold's personal life.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
October 6, 2019
Please read Mikey b.’s review for all you might want to explore. Chris Feliciano Arnold, the intrepid traveler and journalist, takes the reader on a trip to Brazil. There’s plenty of historical horror, humour and dire predictions for the future. Yet, above and beyond the essential reading, I leave with an image of the writer feeding the small silver fish to the pink dolphins before he retires to his hammock and evening revelries. His stories echo along the Amazon rolling out to the Atlantic Ocean.
April 5, 2018
Terrific combination of reportage and roots narrative. An up-to-date look at the world of LOST CITY OF Z.
June 8, 2018
You just can’t make these things up, the whole terribleness within, the corruption, the crimes, this narrative, truth things that past and still go on upon this earth.
Reporting with plenty of heart and passion with clarity in writing.
He went in deep sometimes crossing the thin line between life and death, he returned to his first home, in search of a world he wants to understand of the cause and effect of certain events, conditions of people and histories.
Terrible fate of humans in this narrative.
There is a search for truth behind one Bloody Weekend of July 17 2015, he meticulously researched through reports, “Hundreds of pages of police reports, eyewitness accounts, and autopsies. Hours of grainy surveillance video, murders captured from a dozen angles. Endless wiretaps and cell phone screen captures, the story of how monsters are born.”
The reader will learn of the plight of people, against webs and layers of entanglement, corruptions and atrocities, in no words wasted writing, all layered out in easy reading style, in this passionate heart guided honest search of Amazonian histories.
Excerpts @ https://more2read.com/review/the-third-bank-of-the-river-by-chris-feliciano-arnold/
Reporting with plenty of heart and passion with clarity in writing.
He went in deep sometimes crossing the thin line between life and death, he returned to his first home, in search of a world he wants to understand of the cause and effect of certain events, conditions of people and histories.
Terrible fate of humans in this narrative.
There is a search for truth behind one Bloody Weekend of July 17 2015, he meticulously researched through reports, “Hundreds of pages of police reports, eyewitness accounts, and autopsies. Hours of grainy surveillance video, murders captured from a dozen angles. Endless wiretaps and cell phone screen captures, the story of how monsters are born.”
The reader will learn of the plight of people, against webs and layers of entanglement, corruptions and atrocities, in no words wasted writing, all layered out in easy reading style, in this passionate heart guided honest search of Amazonian histories.
Excerpts @ https://more2read.com/review/the-third-bank-of-the-river-by-chris-feliciano-arnold/
August 17, 2018
The Third Bank of the River is a part personal, part investigative look into the unique social, political, and historical dynamics of the world's most uncharted region. Arnold weaves his own story of discovery - of his own background of adoption - with interviews and observations compiled across multiple trips to Brazil's jungle hinterland. His book provides more questions than answers, but that's to be expected considering the tumultuous history of Brazil and its fretted colonial history.
June 18, 2018
Awesome job weaving journalism and personal experiences into something educational, pleasurably readable, and relevant all at the same time.
August 5, 2020
Given we can’t really travel right now this was a good book in that it felt like an adventure while also providing some educational aspects about Brazil. I appreciated the exposure of the inequality and discussion of corruption rather than glossing over it. My main criticism is that there were parts that overtly masculine and had some subtle notes of sexism in its description of young women. It’s minor, but to me I could tell it was written by a guy and has a male perspective.
August 25, 2018
Through a combination of reporting and memoir, Arnold does an amazing job bringing the struggles and culture of Brazil to life. An eye-opening and engaging book!
August 7, 2018
Fantastic reporting of various issues in the Brazilian Amazon. Many texts will do the thinking for you. They will report not only the facts but how they synthesize together into some conspiratorial turmoil that feels hopeless. Chris Arnold does a fabulous job leaving a more subtle sense of urgency that keeps open the doors of hope. His personal story drags us into our interest and the reporting makes us wonder about our own country and what this might mean for us as well as Brazil. What isn’t said or assumed is what makes this such a strong and engaging read.
May 25, 2018
I wanted to read this since everyone knows how important the Amazon is to the whole planet. You can't be a parent and not know "the Amazon is the lungs of Earth". But like many educational books, it is one that I learned from but didn't really enjoy.
There wasn't any focus on why the Amazon is important - the flora and fauna, the water itself, etc... I was hoping to learn more about that. Instead, was was about who is struggling for the power of the area. The politics and drugs were of little interest to me.
I did enjoy the stories about the indigenous tribes buried deep in the forest, and also the stories of the people in the rural areas that were now being developed and how it is impacting their lives. For me, everything is all about people, so when the people were the focus of the book, it was much more meaningful to me.
There wasn't any focus on why the Amazon is important - the flora and fauna, the water itself, etc... I was hoping to learn more about that. Instead, was was about who is struggling for the power of the area. The politics and drugs were of little interest to me.
I did enjoy the stories about the indigenous tribes buried deep in the forest, and also the stories of the people in the rural areas that were now being developed and how it is impacting their lives. For me, everything is all about people, so when the people were the focus of the book, it was much more meaningful to me.
June 19, 2018
I so enjoyed this book! It’s not only a vivid and urgent history of Brazil and it’s progress into the 21st century, but it’s told with a voice at once intimate and searching, which made this reader feel the author’s lived and carefully researched experience. This is story of homecoming wherein the author understands completely the luck that afforded him the opportunity to tell this story in the first place. But his personal story never overshadows the sweeping story of the Brazilian Amazon and the diverse peoples of this country and the many conflicts that have shaped it as the nation we know today. The grace with which Feliciano Arnold tells this story makes me feel the pulse of history as it beats in the wild heart of its jungles and it’s contentious expansion of its cities. Highly recommend this read!
June 19, 2018
Arnold seamlessly weaves his experiences with history of the people and cultures of Brazil. I didn’t expect to learn so much about Brazil, and I was captivated from beginning to end.
Arnold’s writing is invigorating and beautifully crafted, and I would highly recommend this book to anyone.
Arnold’s writing is invigorating and beautifully crafted, and I would highly recommend this book to anyone.
January 3, 2019
Arnold spikes journalism with memoir, narrating how the people of the Amazon are caught in a shitstorm of allied, conflicting but also mutually enabling gangs, corrupt government, greedy elites, and plundering multinationals and evangelicals. More The Wire than ode to the green. Admiring more and more writers who get their sneakers on the ground, who can compress social experience and research into readable prose. Arnold does this in spades. This allows him to rarely loose site of the people in the huge shifting tides in Brazil's shifting political and social landscape. The chapter on his pursuit of Anderson the dancer gunned down by cops is particularly memorable for this. The writing can be quite deft, shifting tones from reportage to cutting analysis in just a few well chosen words. And though the F word never appears (right), it helped me understand how a strain fascism could get traction in Brazil. Just wish there was a shade more analysis of the relationship between the actors he describes. I think Arnold avoids it by choice to maintain a level of reportorial objectivity but, I dunno, I'd like to see some of the parts connected--like the chapter with its sliver of sympathy for evangelicals paired with a clearer analysis of the particular relationships between evangelicalism and hard right authoritarianism (there's an excellent account of the coevolution of the paramilitary police, prison system, and gangs). I'm greedy! First book of 2019!
January 4, 2019
Firstly thanks to the beautiful people at @picador for allowing me to review their books! This one specifically had my eye from the first time I saw it. Great bit of history and journalism of the Amazon and the dark sides of Brazil. As a person that doesnt have a passport hearing the more grim sides of foreign places dont exactly make me want to rush to get one immediately. I do buy lots of coffee from Brazil though and have been invited to visit farms so here is to safety in coffee. Ha. I was really trying to be a history major before I dropped out of college. This book made me want to get back into school and learn more history. The book read a little bit like a history book from time to time but flowed more entertainingly. Definitely glad I picked this book up. Much different than what I normally read.
Here is to the first review of the year!!
5 out of 5 beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Here is to the first review of the year!!
5 out of 5 beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
November 9, 2018
Having lived in the Rio area in Brazil for six months of my life, though not continuously, I find things Brazil perk my interest. Here is a somewhat depressing read. Rain forest demise. Isolated native tribes ravaged. Law and order absent. I like author's first-person narrative as he travels throughout the Amazon. Essentially a gringo even though born in Brazil, he admits that while doing his research he sometimes he felt he was sightseeing through a Hollywood lens. He's distressed to find so much political and economic corruption. Police, heavily militarized, on the take. Brutal atrocities by drug lords. An "angel" helps him reunite with his birth mother in Belo Horizonte. Nevertheless, "I will always be a visitor in that bighearted country."
April 5, 2020
Written by a man adopted as an infant from Brazil, this book examines current and past epics of Brazilian geography centered in the Amazon. The author travels to Brazil in 2014 to search for his roots and to examine the current situation in the heart of the Amazon. In this book Arnold relays relevant history, provides descriptions of the indigenous people and describes the conflicts that exist between govt officials, drug cartels and the move towards industrialization. In my opinion this book might have included more personal anecdotes between the author and the local Brazilians. While including some, there were many sections that were a bit "dry" to read. Overall a good read.
February 27, 2023
Powerful, angry and compassionate reporting on the violence, exploitation, rampant over-development and environmental destruction ravaging the 21st century Amazon. Arnold paints a vivid and depressing picture of narcotraffickers, paramilitaries, ranchers, death squads, and missionaries laying waste to one of the most fabulous and - from a planetary point of view - essential regions on earth, with a particular emphasis on the horrific treatment of Brazil’s indigenous peoples. Even grimmer to think that this book was written BEFORE Bolsonaro, when everything it describes got worse.
August 31, 2018
GREAT READ! Smooth, informative story.
I learned lots about the cultural dynamics and sociology of the Brazilian Amazon. I appreciate his objective approach in fact finding and reporting. His experiences connecting him to his birth country and mother are an extra touch. I loved it and HIGHLY recommend it!
I learned lots about the cultural dynamics and sociology of the Brazilian Amazon. I appreciate his objective approach in fact finding and reporting. His experiences connecting him to his birth country and mother are an extra touch. I loved it and HIGHLY recommend it!
July 16, 2019
3.5 stars. A broad view of corruption and destruction in the amazon that while at times seems to meander from story to story and back again, covers a lot of ground over the years presented. I think a bit more could have been done towards cohesiveness of the plot-points, but overall a meaningful and informative book.
May 6, 2020
The Amazon river and jungle are constant, but the author focuses on the human stories, past and present, which draw the reader in to become invested in the region and its struggles. If you pick it up, he sure to read through Part III, which contains the best— some truly superior— writing.
September 27, 2023
Extremely well-written, engaging narrative about Chris's journey in Brazil. He effectively opens up our perspective on the history and current situation of Brazil, which is far from what most of us understand.
August 11, 2018
to avoid making this my 8th DNF, resulted in mastering the evelyn wood speed of reading to finish. 2.5
good luck
good luck
August 31, 2018
Excellent overview of tragedies in Brazil both culturally and political. I'm hoping to read more from this author.
January 16, 2019
Exploitation
By corporations
In a nation
Of corruption.
By corporations
In a nation
Of corruption.
August 2, 2019
Excellent read. Chris Feliciano Arnold expertly shines a light on the socio-political movements in Brazil. If you have any interest at all in Latin America, you need to read this book.
February 24, 2021
Part history, part travelouge, part investigative journalism. Interesting read about the Amazon.
October 6, 2022
Good read, educational, and engaging about Brazil, especially the Amazon, and even more so the indigenous people
July 4, 2025
Interesting writing style. Light read and great information.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews