Tree of Rivers: The Story of the Amazon

Amazon is a magnificent habitat containing the world's largest river with more water and a broader basin than any other, hosting a great expanse of tropical rainforest home to the planet's most luxuriant biological diversity.

John Hemming recounts the adventures and misadventures of intrepid explorers, fervent Jesuit ecclesiastics, and greedy rubber barons who enslaved thousands of Indians in the relentless quest for profit.

He also tells of nineteenth-century botanists, fearless advocates for Indian rights, and the archaeologists and anthropologists who have uncovered the secrets of the Amazon's earliest settlers.

Hemming discusses the current threat to Amazonia as forests are destroyed to feed the world's appetite for timber, beef, and soybeans, and he vividly describes the passionate struggles taking place in order to utilize, protect, and understand the Amazon.

20 color, 50 b&w illustrations.