The Lost Amazon

Richard Evans Schultes (1915-2001) was probably the greatest explorer of the Amazon, and regarded among anthropologists and seekers alike as the "father of ethnobotany." Taking what was meant to be a short leave from Harvard in 1941, he surveyed the Amazon basin almost continuously for twelve years, during which time he lived among two dozen different Indian tribes, mapped rivers, secretly sought sources of rubber for the US government during WWII, and collected and classified 30,000 botanical specimens, including 2,000 new medicinal plants. Schultes chronicled his stay there in hundreds of remarkable photographs of the tribes and the land, evocative of the great documentary photographers such as Edward Sheriff Curtis. Published to coincide with a traveling exhibition to debut at the Govinda Gallery in Washington, D.C., The Lost Amazon is the first major publication to examine the work of Dr. Schultes, as seen through his photographs and field notes. With text by Schultes's protege and fellow explorer, Wade Davis, this impressive document takes armchair travelers where they've never gone before.

First sentence: In the early 1970s, a time of few heroes, one man loomed large over the Harvard campus: Richard Evans Schultes, a kindly professor who shot blowguns in class and at one time kept outside his office door a bucket of peyote buttons, available to his students as an optional laboratory experiment.

Year

2004

Language

English

Publisher

Chronicle Books

Editions

2

Pages

204

ISBN

9780811845717

Data source: Wikidata