The Scramble for the Amazon and the "Lost Paradise" of Euclides da Cunha

Resumen del libro

The fortunes of the late nineteenth century's imperial and industrial powers depended on a single raw material rubber with only one source: the Amazon basin. And so began the scramble for the Amazon a decades-long conflict that found Britain, France, Belgium, and the United States fighting with and against the new nations of Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil for the forest's riches. In the midst of this struggle, Euclides da Cunha, engineer, journalist, geographer, political theorist, and one of Brazil's most celebrated writers, led a survey expedition to the farthest reaches of the river, among the world's most valuable, dangerous, and little-known landscapes.