One River [Hardcover]

Wade Davis (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0684808862 | ISBN-13: 978-0684808864 | Publication Date: September 3, 1996 | Edition: 1

In 1974-75, Wade Davis and Tim Plowman traveled the length of South America, living among a dozen Indian tribes, collecting medicinal plants and searching for the origins of coca, the sacred leaf of the Andes and the notorious source of cocaine. It was a journey inspired and made possible by their Harvard mentor, Richard Evans Schultes, the most important scientific explorer in South America in this century, whose exploits rival those of Darwin and the great naturalist explorers of the Victorian age. In 1941, after having identified ololiuqui, the long-lost Aztec hallucinogen, and having collected the first specimens of teonanacatl, the sacred mushroom of Mexico, Schultes took a leave of absence from Harvard and disappeared into the Northwest Amazon of Colombia. Twelve years later, he returned from South America, having gone places no outsider had ever been, mapping uncharted rivers and living among two dozen Indian tribes. He collected some twenty thousand botanical specimens, including three hundred species new to science, and documented the invaluable knowledge of native shamans. The world's leading authority on plant hallucinogens, Schultes was for his students a living link to a distant time when the tropical rain forests stood immense, inviolable, a mantle of green stretching across entire continents. It was a world greatly changed by the time Davis and Plowman began their journey, nearly thirty years later, and changed further today.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Richard Evans Schultes was arguably this century's foremost botanist and the father of ethnobotany--the study of plants and medicinal knowledge of indigenous peoples. He inadvertently inspired the 1960s drug culture with the publication of his scholarly journals on hallucinogenic plants. A meticulous scientist, his research on Columbia's rubber-producing hevea trees led to America's mass-production of rubber during World War II, which ultimately contributed to victory. Davis, one of Schultes's most devoted students, recounts the great botanist's life--from his research along hundreds of miles of forested rivers and his jungle treks while shattered by malaria to his intuitive gift with Amazon shamans and his relationship with such cult figures as Timothy Leary and William Burroughs.

From Publishers Weekly

The prodigious biological and cultural riches of the vast Amazon rain forest are being lost at a horrendous rate, according to the author, often without yielding their secrets to the Western world. During his years in the South American jungle, ethnobotanist Davis (The Serpent and the Rainbow) has done much to preserve some of these treasures. He tells two entwined tales here?his own explorations in the '70s and those of his mentor, the great Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, beginning in the '30s. Both men have been particularly interested in the psychoactive and medicinal properties of the plants of the Amazon basin and approach their subject with a reverence for the cultural context in which the plants are used. The contrasting experiences of two explorers, a mere generation apart, starkly demonstrates how much has already been destroyed in the rain forest. Although Schultes probably knew more about Amazonian plants than any Western scientist, he was constantly learning of new ones and new uses for them from native experts. Davis graphically describes the brutal clash of cultures from Columbian times to the present, often so devastating for indigenous peoples, that has defined this region. At times humorous, at times depressing, this is a consistently enlightening and thought-provoking study. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1 edition (September 3, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684808862
• ISBN-13: 978-0684808864
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #607,741 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Ecosystems > Tropical
  • #45 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Rain Forests

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Human & Ecological Diversity Fall Victim to the Modern World, March 17, 2001

By 

Jim Breitinger (Salt Lake City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One River (Paperback)

"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.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Depswa disclosed, November 6, 2002

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One River (Paperback)

Anyone still doubting the superiority of truth over fiction need only take this book to a quiet corner and start reading. Wade Davis relates the stories of two Richards, Schultes and Spruce, plus his own in their respective excursions in the upper Amazon. Schultes, Davis' Harvard mentor, spent many years there seeking medicinal plants and new sources of rubber when access to Asian resins were lost during World War II. No work of fiction, including Hollywood's almost trifling account in the film Medicine Man, can match the scope of what Schultes accomplished during his extensive travels. Schultes had the good sense to approach the Native American shamans with respect, dealing with them on their terms and not as a latter-day conquistador. They responded to his inquiries in kind, leading to countless new medicines for treating our "civilized" illnesses. He became a "depswa" - medicine man - sharing their rituals while gaining knowledge. Davis is able to use his close relationship with Schultes to provide an engrossing and detailed account of Schultes' career in the bush.

The second Richard is Schultes' own model. Richard Spruce came to the Upper Amazon from mid-Victorian England. Prompted by an inestimable source, Charles Darwin's account of the Beagle voyage, Spruce entered the Amazon country in 1849. Few of the celebrated explorers in Africa in the same period can match the perils Spruce faced and dealt with. As did his follower Schultes, Spruce avoided the overbearing colonialist image - his desires were achieved by finding new medicinal plants. Spruce dealt with the dispensers of drugs and their tales of visions incurred as an equal. In their turn they imparted valuable information leading to useful medicines. Clearly, both Schultes and Spruce operated as Davis stipulates: "botanists in the Amazon must come to peace with their own ignorance." As Schultes, Spruce and Davis himself demonstrate, the peaceful approach brings substantial rewards in information and experience.

Davis' own, modern, story enhances that of his mentor Schultes, carrying the research and adventure forward. Only the ability to travel further and faster than his teacher separates the two. Davis has a sensitive touch in describing the world of the Upper Amazon, its dense forests and often mysterious people. His grief at the loss of their culture is manifest, buttressed by a strong historical sense of what they once were. Certainly this account belies the image of the "detached" scientist scouring the forest's resources for personal gain. He is there to learn and to teach us. He accomplishes both with a fascinating narrative. This is a book to be treasured and read again. A single sitting with this book is but an introduction to this disappearing world. Read it and discover that adventure is not a lost experience.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even Deeper in the Wonder, April 14, 2004

By 

"jumarther" (oklahoma city, oklahoma) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One River (Hardcover)

This will be a very short review on a book that has long been with me. While working on a reproductive biology macaw research project climbing into the canopy of the Amazon each day for 3 months i found ONE RIVER one night piled amongst the research literature. Even though i had the Amazon literally ground into my bones after so many days of hard labor i could not put this book down each night reading by candle. Could one gourge on steak then still enjoy reading about cattle? This is simply a fascinating, and most well written book on arguably the most complex wonderful ecosystem as experienced by a most hard working curiously gifted individual. Do your soul a favor and read this book 5 times!!!