The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey (Paperback)

by Candice Millard (Author)
Key Phrases: two balsas, cama radas, empty dugouts, River of Doubt, South America, Cinta Larga (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In a gripping account, Millard focuses on an episode in Teddy Roosevelt's search for adventure that nearly came to a disastrous end. A year after Roosevelt lost a third-party bid for the White House in 1912, he decided to chase away his blues by accepting an invitation for a South American trip that quickly evolved into an ill-prepared journey down an unexplored tributary of the Amazon known as the River of Doubt. The small group, including T.R.'s son Kermit, was hampered by the failure to pack enough supplies and the absence of canoes sturdy enough for the river's rapids. An injury Roosevelt sustained became infected with flesh-eating bacteria and left the ex-president so weak that, at his lowest moment, he told Kermit to leave him to die in the rainforest. Millard, a former staff writer for National Geographic, nails the suspense element of this story perfectly, but equally important to her success is the marvelous amount of detail she provides on the wildlife that Roosevelt and his fellow explorers encountered on their journey, as well as the cannibalistic indigenous tribe that stalked them much of the way.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The Washington Post
Just try to imagine it: George W. Bush loses re-election by a landslide and, undeterred by the humiliation of it all, sets off on a journey of unspeakable danger and hardship into the darkest depths of the Amazon jungle. There would be a media circus the likes of which the world has never seen. Picture the TV crews following in his wake, tripping over chemical toilets, generators and satellite phones. In these times of media gurus and spin-doctoring, we would write off the expedition as a stunt, a way of stealing the limelight from his rival's victory.

Rewind almost a century, to November 1912. Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most popular presidents in American history, is crushed at the polls by Woodrow Wilson after two terms in office (this was before the two-term rule). Roosevelt is 54 years of age, 5'5" tall, weighs more than 200 pounds and when speaking sounds "as if he had just taken a sip of helium." He's shunned by his high-society Republican friends for having run as a third-party candidate, and is generally lampooned by everyone else for losing by such a wide margin. What does he do? Sets off into the Brazilian jungle to venture up an uncharted tributary of the Amazon, known as "The River of Doubt," which has given Candice Millard the title of her fine account of the expedition.

For the indefatigable Roosevelt, the adventure was not a media stunt, nor the start to a long comeback campaign. It was a form of self-imposed therapy. Roosevelt had been a pallid, sickly child. He had overcome asthma and early illness by throwing himself headlong into physical challenge. Whenever hit by despair, he collected himself and embarked on what he termed "the strenuous life." There was no question about Roosevelt's stamina. While campaigning for the 1912 election, he had been shot in the chest by a Bavarian immigrant. Although wounded (one bullet was five inches inside him), Roosevelt insisted on delivering the address. Holding up his text so that the terrified audience could glimpse the holes in it, he shouted, "It takes more than that to kill a bull moose!" As far as he was concerned, a resounding political whipping called for a fabulous feat. He was invited to Latin America to deliver a series of political speeches. It was a mildly uninteresting proposition, for he claimed to detest public speaking, but the thought of jungle adventure was a potent incentive. That his third son, Kermit, was living in Brazil at the time made the idea of South America all the more enticing.

The expedition was to be led jointly by Roosevelt and Brazil's most celebrated explorer, Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon. Kermit was invited to participate, too, and he readily accepted despite his recent engagement. Another leading member was the naturalist George Cherrie, who had spent 30 years exploring the Amazon.

A journey of 400 miles took them across the Brazilian Highlands to the Amazon basin. Three years earlier, while exploring the region, Rondon had discovered a twisting, foaming waterway. With no clue as to where it went -- or if it went anywhere at all -- he christened it Rio da Duvida, "The River of Doubt."

From the outset the name must have seemed inappropriate; "The River of Execution" would have been more fitting. The stream was a surging passage of rapids and boiling white water, the banks of which hid enraged Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows. As one who has endured months of adversity in the Amazon, I can vouch that jungle hardship strips a man of his defenses. The enemy is all around: anacondas, piranhas, caimans, sweat bees, disease, hunger, fever and -- worst of all -- the uncertainty of knowing when, how or if it will come to an end.

But for Roosevelt, the jungle also provided the therapy he sought, making his usual world of American politics seem distant and trivial. The endless succession of calamities (resulting from ill-planning and sheer bad luck) would have been enough to distract the most disciplined mind. Notable setbacks included terrible illness and the loss of canoes and supplies to the perfidious rapids. By the end of it, the party was so worn down that even the slowest advance was an ordeal. The team members were emaciated, crippled by disease and fatigue and trapped by rapids -- Roosevelt as much as anyone else. One night George Cherrie, the naturalist and Amazonian expert, took a good look at the sweat-soaked figure before him. He had little hope, he confided in his diary, that Theodore Roosevelt would survive until morning. The specter of death hovered over a man who faded in and out of delirium, reciting over and over a couplet from Coleridge: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree."

Roosevelt pulled through, and The River of Doubt reminds one of the man himself -- thorough, robust, extremely knowledgeable and triumphant. There are far too many books in which a travel writer follows in the footsteps of his or her hero -- and there are far too few books like this, in which an author who has spent time and energy ferreting out material from archival sources weaves it into a truly gripping tale.

Reviewed by Tahir Shah
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (October 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767913736
• ISBN-13: 978-0767913737
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (235 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,164 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

175 of 183 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, October 27, 2005

By	Kat Bakhu (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey (Hardcover)

When I saw River of Doubt it struck me as a fascinating story and I immediately put in my order with Amazon. As I waited for it to arrive, I began to worry that I might have been too impulsive. Afterall, a fascinating story can be as limp as milk toast in the hands of a mediocre writer. I wondered if the author would bring Roosevelt's Amazon journey to life without adding so many extraneous details about Roosevelt himself that the real adventure was lost. Or, on the other hand, not supplying enough details about the central characters to allow me to understood the true context in which the adventure occurred.

After I got the book and started to read, all of my concerns were put aside. Completely. I know next to nothing about T. Roosevelt. Millard gave me what I needed to know to understand why he would take such a dangerous trip, at such a late age, in the first place.

She was equally masterful with all the other participants (many fascinating characters in their own right). I think Millard was near perfect in giving the background of people and why they ended up on this diasterous adventure while keeping the story moving at a fascinating and absorbing clip. One really gets a sense of how people were feeling when they started with what they thought would be a casual adventure and found themselves descending into one of Earth's strangest hells. It's a spellbinding story delivered by a very competent writer and researcher.

I've always enjoyed true stories of the Amazon River. Miller's River of Doubt is fascinating, informing, and gripping and stands with the best of them.

97 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It Gave me a New Appreciation for TR, December 5, 2005

By	John D. Sherwood (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey (Hardcover)

Anyone who enjoyed Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage or any other tale of exploration and hardship will love River of Doubt. Candice Millard's new book chronicles the expedition of Theodore Roosevelt and his Brazilian co-commander, Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon, down one of Amazon's last unexplored tributaries in 1914-the River of Doubt. The 400-mile river trip tested every ounce of the ex-president's intellect, courage, and physical stamina. Millard's book, therefore, is more a tale of survival than adventure.

Roosevelt and his American companions were woefully unprepared for their journey. They brought boats too large to be of use on a shallow river, and had to rely instead on Indian-made dugouts-canoes designed more for local transportation on flat water than long-distanced descents through rapids. The American and Brazilain members of the group often had to portage these heavy, waterlogged boats around rapids, which cost the group both time and precious food supplies.

Food proved to be one of the most vexing problems of the journey. Much of the canned food shipped from the United States was too heavy to be carried to the expedition's launching point in the Brazilian highlands, and had to be discarded. Instead, Roosevelt hoped to augment his increasingly meager rations with game shot along the way. Unfortunately, the rain forest did not offer much bounty and the group ended up eating monkeys and piranhas to survive-creatures far more difficult to kill than deer and antelope.

If that were not enough, disease plagued the expedition at every corner. Kermit, the son of President Roosevelt, fought malaria for most of the trip and Theodore almost died when he contracted a deadly bacterial infection from a small flesh wound. Author Candice Millard does an excellent job of describing the numerous hazards confronted by the group without getting too bogged down in rain forest ecology. The book's moderate length and circumscribed subject matter make it much easier to plow through than a typical biography. With that being said, some historians may be disappointed that the book does not shed much more light on Roosevelt's political philosophies or his quest to preserve public land. Was Roosevelt an early environmentalist or simply an avid hunter and adventurer? This book does not answer that question.

It does, however, show us a side of Theodore Roosevelt's character often lacking in traditional biographies of the man: his humanity. The author describes how the ex-president shared in the work, dangers, and hardships of the journey. In one scene, she shows Roosevelt washing the clothes of his companions and in another, the sick ex-president giving away his rations to one of the expedition's "more productive" Brazilian laborers. In short, readers will walk away from this book with new-found appreciation for President Roosevelt and his undaunted courage-something often lacking in today's breed of politicians.

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars T.R. Survived, But was Never the Same Again, October 22, 2005

By	Alan Rockman (Upland, California) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey (Hardcover)

After narrowly losing the 1912 Presidential election to Woodrow Wilson (how history might have been different if Roosevelt, who despised Racism and was Pro-British, had beaten the Racist Wilson), Theodore Roosevelt decided to embark on a long journey into an unknown tributary of the Amazon River - The River of Doubt, hence the title of this book. Roosevelt was confident, cocksure, - after all this was a man who advocated "the strenuous life", had built himself up in the Badlands of the American West and had explored the deepest, remote regions of Africa. After all, a river in Brazil couldn't be much different, right?

Well, unfortunately for Roosevelt, wrong. The jungles were full of poisonous snakes, of Anacondas, of malaria-ridden mosquitoes, and other parasites, and his expedition had not prepared adequately for the task of exploring this dangerous region. In short, most of the expedition became ill quite fast, and even the former President, stricken with dysentery and a festering leg wound, urged the expedition and his son, Kermit, who was with him, to go on and let him die along the banks of the river. Indeed, Roosevelt was ready to take his own life, but Kermit Roosevelt, ironically not as fit as his brothers Archie, Quentin, or Theodore Jr. - who weren't on this dangerous voyage - refused to let his father die an inglorious death, and managed to bring him out of the jungle.

Yes, they survived, but the experience completely shattered what was left of the Old Lion's health - after all, he had been shot in the chest only two years before in the Bull Moose campaign against Wilson, and had gone blind in one eye. Susceptible to infection that weakened his heart, Roosevelt died but five years later, at a relatively young 60. In many ways, this is as much the story of Kermit Roosevelt, who accompanied his father to toughen himself. The experience proved to be the opposite, as he never recovered from his father's death, and would plunge into alcoholism, infidelity, and finally suicide.

The author, a National Geographic well-traveled veteran has written a fairly detailed, incredible book about the preserverance of T.R. and of the region, aptly named the River of Doubt, that he explored.

The reader might also consider "The Lion's Pride" by Edward J. Renehan. While the passage on the ill-fated journey is short, there's much about the Old Lion's relationship with Kermit, and Kermit's subsequent, unhappy life in it.