or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
38 used & new from $9.50
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Express Checkout with PayPhrase
What's this? | Create PayPhrase
Sorry!
X
In Amazonia: A Natural History
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book
Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Don’t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.
 
  

In Amazonia: A Natural History (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Let's begin in 1976..." (more)
Key Phrases: canoa pequena, açaí palm, terra preta, Igarapé Guariba, Raimundo Viega, The Discoverie (more...)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
List Price: $28.95
Price: $26.05 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save: $2.90 (10%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Only 5 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want it delivered Tuesday, November 10? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
19 new from $22.00 19 used from $9.50

Also Available in:

 List Price: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover $55.00 $55.00 2 used & new from $55.00

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization (Yale Agrarian Studies Series) by Michael Goldman

In Amazonia: A Natural History + Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)
Price For Both: $40.47

Show availability and shipping details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies)

Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies)

by Bruno Latour
5.0 out of 5 stars (5)  $21.94
Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection

Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection

by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
5.0 out of 5 stars (2)  $19.71
Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas

Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas

by Stefan Helmreich
$24.95
Understories: The Political Life of Forests in Northern New Mexico

Understories: The Political Life of Forests in Northern New Mexico

by Jake Kosek
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  $19.08
The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice (Science and Cultural Theory)

The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice (Science and Cultural Theory)

by Annemarie Mol
$19.75
› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Beautiful ... a 'must read' for all those interested in ideas of nature and the poetics and politics of place making." -- Luciana Martins, Society & Space

A new classic of the Amazon. . . . In a sweeping panorama of the history of the Amazon . . . Raffles impresses with his enormous scholarship and lyrical language. . . . [T]he range of Raffles's knowledge is exquisitely broad. What we thought we knew of the Amazon and the reasons for its devastation will forever be changed by this rapturous soliloquy on the region. -- Review

In a sweeping panorama of the history of the Amazon . . . Raffles impresses with his enormous scholarship and lyrical language. -- Choice

This book is amongst the most readable and penetrating analyses we have. -- Mark Harris , Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

[It draws] upon a range of literature not typical of Amazonian studies. Specialists and general readers will appreciate the scope. -- Stephen Nugent, Journal of Latin American Studies


Review

A new classic of the Amazon. . . . In a sweeping panorama of the history of the Amazon . . . Raffles impresses with his enormous scholarship and lyrical language. . . . [T]he range of Raffles's knowledge is exquisitely broad. What we thought we knew of the Amazon and the reasons for its devastation will forever be changed by this rapturous soliloquy on the region.
(Choice )

[It draws] upon a range of literature not typical of Amazonian studies. Specialists and general readers will appreciate the scope.
(Stephen Nugent Journal of Latin American Studies )

A central challenge in studies of the Amazon region is apprehending its social and natural diversity. This book is amongst the most readable and penetrating analyses we have. . . . The tension between being in a place and always on the move, between dissolution and creation, are ambiguities this book manages to capture with deftness and subtlety. It would have been enough to write about this in one locality, but to have done so connecting up various places and people, and across time transforms the argument into a major achievement.
(Mark Harris Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute )
See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

More About the Author

Hugh Raffles
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Hugh Raffles Page
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Let's begin in 1976. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
canoa pequena, açaí palm, terra preta, das águas, historical ecology, tropical nature, rubber boom
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Igarapé Guariba, Raimundo Viega, The Discoverie, South America, Chermont de Miranda, Dona Rita, Rio Preto, José Macedo, Seu Benedito, Benedito Macedo, Rio Negro, Wild Coast, North American, Rio Guariba, Nestor Viega, Baptista de Moura, British Museum, Edinaldo Gomes, Henry Walter Bates, New York, Octávio da Gama, Rio Tocantins, Henry Bates, Igarapé Guariha, Rio Moju
New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100 books:
See all 100 books this book cites
 
9 books cite this book:
See all 9 books citing this book

Books on Related Topics (learn more)
 
 

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

In Amazonia: A Natural History
90% buy the item featured on this page:
In Amazonia: A Natural History 3.8 out of 5 stars (9)
$26.05
Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas
4% buy
Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas
$24.95
The Amazon, 3rd: The Bradt Travel Guide
3% buy
The Amazon, 3rd: The Bradt Travel Guide 4.3 out of 5 stars (7)
$17.15
Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon
2% buy
Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon 4.0 out of 5 stars (5)
$19.90
Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(2)
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more
 

Customer Reviews

9 Reviews
5 star:
 (5)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Natural history for the 21st century, January 6, 2004
By Anand Pandian (Oakland, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
Amazonia is arguably the heartland of modern Western environmentalism-the region where many fundamental ecological insights were first proposed and honed, the site of some of the most violent and wrenching contemporary conflicts over natural resource exploitation and conservation, and the beloved core of a planetary nature conceived all too often as a battered and sputtering "spaceship Earth." In Amazonia casts a fresh and provocative light on this vital and contested terrain.

Nature in this account is not a primeval zone either threatened or threatening, but rather a dynamic and heterogeneous web of places and relations, saturated with the affinities and intimacies, the memories and yearnings, of everyday life. Tracking back and forth between multiple sites and scales, In Amazonia takes up a series of human engagements through which the very nature of the Amazon has been elaborated-exploratory expeditions, natural history collections, ecological experimentations, and embodied practices of occupation and development.

Raffles writes both with and against the literary traditions of Western naturalism, suggestively presenting the Amazon itself as an assemblage or collection of living objects. The result is a novel and enlightening mode of "natural history," one that places at center stage both the accidents and the affects that have made modern Amazonia.

Ultimately it is the quality of Raffles' writing that makes this volume such a captivating and enlightening read. With great skill and delicacy, Raffles spins out a narrative that turns at every turn on contingency-on the myriad and unpredictable accidents of biography, politics and philosophy that lend to places their significance and texture.

It is in such workings that nature itself finds a measure of agency, ecological chains of consequence turning fields to swamps, dropping houses and fruit trees into river beds, forcing fish to move from one place to another. Raffles is candid about the contingencies that led him through the path of his own writing, from the seductions of his characters to the personal traumas that directed him to the question of Amazonian passions in the first place.

As an heir to the vexing legacies of Western environmentalism myself, I found that In Amazonia struck many an unanticipated chord. How many of us have shared Amazonian dreams unknowing?

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This is an amazing book!, January 3, 2004
By Jake Kosek (Stanford) - See all my reviews
This is an amazing book - at once engaging, entertaining and challenging. I can understand why it won two awards for ethnographic writing at the AAA. It is a testament to the possibility of combining beautifully written prose, interesting stories and sophisticated theoretical insights under the same cover, making it a great read for those with a general interest in Natural History, the environment and Amazonia, as well as for the most theoretically-minded academics interested in a sophisticated exploration of the complex relationships between nature, culture and power. Indeed, I used this book in a graduate seminar that I taught at Stanford and my students selected it as the best of 12 ethnographies they read during the course. The book has also been thoroughly enjoyed by non-academics, including my sister, who is a physician. In short In Amazonia is a tremendously worthwhile read.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Representative Imagination, January 2, 2004
By Eugene Power (Hong Kong Autonomous Region, China) - See all my reviews
A difficult but important book that breaks with cold objectivism.

"In Amazonia" is a book on how the Amazon, as a river, a region, and a panacea, emerges and disappears from the imagination. Raffles takes extreme care to analyze European and American interests in the region since it was colonized and its abundant plant and animal populations overwhelmed civilized sensibilities.

The Amazon is a geographical location where struggles, even over its very cartographic boundaries, take place against different backgrounds and in the imaginations of people with different goals. Globalization over the ages has gone in and out of the region just as the river tides ebb and flow.

"In Amazonia" is a worthwhile work since Raffles has taken care not to allow the Amazon to appear singular or homogenous. The lack of integration of the book is intentional and effective, and reveals conflicts that exist in representing any region of world. This book is valuable to readers interested in Amazonia particularly, and to anyone who views nature and culture as more than simple entities generally.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars academic pretension reigns supreme
This book, masquerading as a scholarly production, is best read as a parody of modern social anthropology. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Robert

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read
This beautifully written book won the 2003 Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing, a big deal in US anthropology. Read more
Published on June 23, 2004 by Bill Brigsted

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but a tough read.
From the first chapter: "I am preoccupied by a range of questions in the politics of nature that draw me to explore the fullness and multiplicity of nature as a domain marked both... Read more
Published on May 31, 2004 by BangorBill

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful writing; compelling anthropology
"In Amazonia" tells an engaging and well-researched story of epic proportions. Raffles' lyrical style draws the reader close to the narrative but stops short of... Read more
Published on January 1, 2004 by Sarah Jane Neilson

5.0 out of 5 stars anthropology at its best
Hugh Raffles has managed a very difficult feat-writing an engaging and accessible book about a quite complex topic, the emergence of Amazonia as a region. Read more
Published on January 1, 2004 by I. Gershon

1.0 out of 5 stars Who in academia chooses these?
Sorry, this is one of the worst books I've ever read. It is overwritten and makes no worthwhile point. Read more
Published on December 29, 2003 by Robert Sutherland

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   

Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)

Look for Similar Items by Category

Look for Similar Items by Subject

Search Books by subject:

























i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...
 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.