One River Review

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(More customer reviews)"One River" will take you on a journey that you will never forget. It will introduce you to one of the twentieth century's most remarkable men--Richard Evans Schultes, as well as one of the world's most fascinating places--the Amazon.
The book is the story of the work of Schultes and two of his students, including the author Wade Davis. It will take you as close as you can ever be to lost cultures and lost ecosystems along with cultures and ecosystems that are very much endangered. Wade Davis is a champion of both human and ecological diversity. "One River" is probably the most eloquent testament to ethnic and biological diversity I've ever read.
As the modern world encroaches on every last nook and cranny of this beautiful earth, "One River" serves as a primer about what once was and about the price we pay as we lose one more species, or one more human culture forever.
This book is an adventure story. It is a story of incredible academic accomplishment. The term academic, with its connotations of being hopelessly removed from the real world does not apply here. Schultes and his students could not be more connected to the real world.
"One River" is the story of man and nature and how the two interact, each forever changing the other. Read this book and then tell your friends about it. While it is hard to make such a claim (there are so many good books), I'd have to say this is my favorite book.

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Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest Review

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(More customer reviews)If you're a student of ethnobotany, you've come across the works and influence of Richard Evans Schultes who not only got the discipline on the charts but also spawned all of its major researchers. Plotkin, like many of the other ethnobotanists out there, never imagined going into this area but after attending a lecture by Schultes was forever hooked. And who wouldn't be? There are few tracks of study that harken back to the great era of discovery when large swaths of maps were inscribed "TERRA INCOGNITA" and strange tales of lost tribes, hidden ruins, and secret rituals abounded. In short, ethnobotany is a calling card for the last terrestrial adventure. Reading any of its texts one gets to take part in this adventure vicariously.
Like "One River" (Wade Davis), Plotkin's "Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice" takes us to the most remote areas of the Amazon and allows us to sample the last vestiges of traditional cultures where, in the words of Plotkin, the arrival of Columbus in 1492 is just being felt. It's taken 500 years for European civilization to finally penetrate the canopy of the deep rainforest but the Conquest is now nearly complete and the very last of the holdouts are starting to wear ratty jeans and tossed off t-shirts, sing cheesy Bible hymns, and guzzle down Coca-Cola. For all the adventure and good writing, a long sad tune is heard as one reads this book; a threnody to bemoan the last gasp of wise-old cultures as their vision goes dark. And with each of these cultures is lost all the knowledge of plants that they have come to know so well. But, in truth, the loss of this knowledge is not so important since the plants themselves are disappearing into oblivion even faster. As was recently reported, the Amazonian rainforest lost 10000 square miles in 2004 alone. It seems that all one can do is stand tall at the funeral to pay respect.
Lest one lash out too quickly at the misguided missionaries or encroaching campesinos, Plotkin does a majestic job of introducing us to these characters and showing how each is doing what is right in its own way. It's just that the rainforest was never meant to take on modernity and humanity's billions. As the two clash, modernity-as has been its record-wins, even at the loss of irreplaceable natural resources.
The book is hard to put down and if one needs more of the same, "One River" should be the next read. With enough interest in the Amazon and its issues perhaps, just perhaps, a critical mass of people can come together to better protect this ecological and anthropological treasure trove.


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