Into the Amazon: The Struggle for the Rain Forest - Softcover

Dwyer, Augusta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0871566370 ISBN 13: 9780871566379

Publisher: Random House, Inc., 1991

Synopsis

Describes current efforts by the Brazilian government to develop the rain forest and discusses the life and death of Chico Mendes, the most prominent spokeman for the preservation of the rain forest

About this title

Reviews

Dwyer conjures up the world of the rain forest without the benefit of the lush color photos that mark many books on the Amazon. A freelance journalist based in Brazil, she chronicles her journeys in the region with a reporter's eye for pithy details and a poetic touch ("The sky was bright, a pale blue airbrushed with luminous cirrus clouds, and the river was the color of milk chocolate, edged in white where it fanned out from the path of the boat"). But her writing grows somewhat dense and tedious when she tackles the politics of the Amazon, including the struggles of the late Chico Mendes and others to fend off developers. The book is as sprawling as the Amazon basin--one chapter focuses on legends about dolphins transforming themselves into amorous humans; another describes ailing, crying babies at a clinic; and yet another examines a dwindling Jewish community living in an Amazon town described as "a combination of Miami and Calcutta." These shifts in subject matter and tone can be disorienting. But they also lend the book an air of the unexpected--the reader never knows what Dwyer will encounter at her next destination.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The ongoing destruction of the Amazon rain forest threatens environmental survival. Other recent books, notably Alex Shoumatoff's popular, journalistic The World Is Burning ( LJ 8/1/90) and Adrian Cowell's comprehensive The Decade of Destruction ( LJ 9/15/90; one of LJ' s "Best Books of 1990"), have dealt with the subject. Dwyer's book is similar in that all three authors have considerable first-hand experience in the Amazon River Valley, and each vividly portrays all the actors involved in this tragedy in-the-making as well as the eventual repercussions that may well have a fatal impact on life on earth. Dwyer's book is strong on the environmental perspective. Libraries that can afford it should have all three; others should have the Cowell book. --Ian Wallace, Agriculture Canada Lib., St.
Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House, Inc.
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0871566370
• ISBN 13: 9780871566379
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 250