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In Amazonia: A Natural History
The Amazon is not what it seems. As Hugh Raffles shows us in this captivating and innovative book, the world's last great wilderness has been transformed again and again by human activity. In Amazonia brings to life an Amazon whose allure and reality lie as much, or more, in what people have made of it as in what nature has wrought. It casts new light on centuries of encounter while describing the dramatic remaking of a sweeping landscape by residents of one small community in the Brazilian Amazon. Combining richly textured ethnographic research and lively historical analysis, Raffles weaves a fascinating story that changes our understanding of this region and challenges us to rethink what we mean by nature.
Raffles draws from a wide range of material to demonstrate--in contrast to the tendency to downplay human agency in the Amazon--that the region is an outcome of the intimately intertwined histories of humans and nonhumans. He moves between a detailed narrative that analyzes the production of scientific knowledge about Amazonia over the centuries and an absorbing account of the extraordinary transformations to the fluvial landscape carried out over the past forty years by the inhabitants of Igarap� Guariba, four hours downstream from the nearest city.
Engagingly written, theoretically inventive, and vividly illustrated, the book introduces a diverse range of characters--from sixteenth-century explorers and their native rivals to nineteenth-century naturalists and contemporary ecologists, logging company executives, and river-traders. A natural history of a different kind, In Amazonia shows how humans, animals, rivers, and forests all participate in the making of a region that remains today at the center of debates in environmental politics.
Raffles draws from a wide range of material to demonstrate--in contrast to the tendency to downplay human agency in the Amazon--that the region is an outcome of the intimately intertwined histories of humans and nonhumans. He moves between a detailed narrative that analyzes the production of scientific knowledge about Amazonia over the centuries and an absorbing account of the extraordinary transformations to the fluvial landscape carried out over the past forty years by the inhabitants of Igarap� Guariba, four hours downstream from the nearest city.
Engagingly written, theoretically inventive, and vividly illustrated, the book introduces a diverse range of characters--from sixteenth-century explorers and their native rivals to nineteenth-century naturalists and contemporary ecologists, logging company executives, and river-traders. A natural history of a different kind, In Amazonia shows how humans, animals, rivers, and forests all participate in the making of a region that remains today at the center of debates in environmental politics.
320 pages, Paperback
First published October 7, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 25, 2015
Just as river waters ceaselessly make and unmake its geography, the Amazonian landscape has proven pliant for contradictory and shifting human narratives. From Sir Walter Raleigh's political need for an El Dorado to a modern group of rural Brazilians bickering about a generation-old power struggle, the Amazon is generously and physically plastic.
I really like the core idea of In Amazonia -- that understanding the region is impossible unless you understand the multitude of contradictory "texts" embraced simultaneously by past conquerors and current residents -- but I was somewhat thrown by the tone of the book. Three-fourths of the book is richly anecdotal and conversational, whether the author is laying out the lifelong disappointments of naturalist Henry Walter Bates or turning an anthropological eye on the self-conscious residents of an Amazonian tributary during the 1990s. But these accounts are unexpectedly laced with abstract, jangly terminology, as if the author randomly felt the need to prove his chops as a Real Historian.
Admittedly, the reader probably knows what lies ahead after seeing the Walter Benjamin quote on the third page, but I was constantly jarred by the tonal shifts in the book. Perhaps it reveals my own biases when I prefer the straight reportage over the interpretative theory, but I'd like to think that there's a middle ground between the spoon-feeding found in "popular" history and the impenetrable, inside-baseball jargon present in academic history. In Amazonia handles its subject so smoothly and naturally most of the time that it's doubly disappointing when it fumbles towards some strained buzz word.
(Also: The In Amazonia drinking game includes the words "materiality" and "oneiric.")
I really like the core idea of In Amazonia -- that understanding the region is impossible unless you understand the multitude of contradictory "texts" embraced simultaneously by past conquerors and current residents -- but I was somewhat thrown by the tone of the book. Three-fourths of the book is richly anecdotal and conversational, whether the author is laying out the lifelong disappointments of naturalist Henry Walter Bates or turning an anthropological eye on the self-conscious residents of an Amazonian tributary during the 1990s. But these accounts are unexpectedly laced with abstract, jangly terminology, as if the author randomly felt the need to prove his chops as a Real Historian.
Admittedly, the reader probably knows what lies ahead after seeing the Walter Benjamin quote on the third page, but I was constantly jarred by the tonal shifts in the book. Perhaps it reveals my own biases when I prefer the straight reportage over the interpretative theory, but I'd like to think that there's a middle ground between the spoon-feeding found in "popular" history and the impenetrable, inside-baseball jargon present in academic history. In Amazonia handles its subject so smoothly and naturally most of the time that it's doubly disappointing when it fumbles towards some strained buzz word.
(Also: The In Amazonia drinking game includes the words "materiality" and "oneiric.")
March 12, 2012
This is a book about how a mythical place - the Amazon - is, and has been, made through human and non-human action. His writing is poetic, which is at times lovely, and at other times a bit confusing.
Especially loved the latter chapters, where memory, nostalgia, and dreams figure heavily. His discussion of Bachelard on water is magnificent.
Especially loved the latter chapters, where memory, nostalgia, and dreams figure heavily. His discussion of Bachelard on water is magnificent.
August 2, 2022
This book had sections that were incredibly lyrical, but other sections which were, well, not. I would give it a five if it were homogeneously lyrical. Nevertheless, it was the perfect companion for my first trip to the Amazon. Highly recommend!
September 24, 2019
This was difficult to read, and to review. It demands patience, and I think each essay might work better on its own than in a collection. Of all academic disciplines anthropology (and ethnography in particular) can be the most meditative, thick, oblique, assiduously avoiding the reader's attempts to reduce it to summary arguments.
Ultimately this is a book about the contingency of locality and the power of place. If that seems like a contradiction, Raffles readily acknowledges that. He wants the reader to think they are accompanying him in search of "the real Amazon" which is no more solid or uniform than Raleigh's dreams of El Dorado, instead showing the differences and continuities that emerge kalaidoscopically through each new pair of eyes.
Ultimately this is a book about the contingency of locality and the power of place. If that seems like a contradiction, Raffles readily acknowledges that. He wants the reader to think they are accompanying him in search of "the real Amazon" which is no more solid or uniform than Raleigh's dreams of El Dorado, instead showing the differences and continuities that emerge kalaidoscopically through each new pair of eyes.
August 25, 2008
i've been reading this book for about 3 years now and i constantly find new things about it that amaze me. raffles' writing is sometimes verbose and jargon-laden, but, more often than not, he communicates complex ideas simply and beautifully.
May 9, 2007
read this -- it's super!
May 2, 2008
I think this book is radical and not only because it was written by the chair of my anthropology department.
could-not-finish
May 2, 2010Excessively, narcissistically sesquipedalian. Couldn't even muddle through the first chapter.
April 4, 2012
Raffles is so boring that I fell asleep reading it time and time again. The last few chapters are with the read.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews