Download or read book River of Darkness written by Buddy Levy and published by Diversion Books. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed author of Labyrinth of Ice charts the legendary sixteenth-century adventurer’s death-defying navigation of the Amazon River. In 1541, Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro and his lieutenant Francisco Orellana searched for La Canela, South America’s rumored Land of Cinnamon, and the fabled El Dorado, “the golden man.” Quickly, the enormous expedition of mercenaries, enslaved natives, horses, and hunting dogs were decimated through disease, starvation, and attacks in the jungle. Hopelessly lost in the swampy labyrinth, Pizarro and Orellana made the fateful decision to separate. While Pizarro eventually returned home in rags, Orellana and fifty-seven men continued into the unknown reaches of the mighty Amazon jungle and river. Theirs would be the greater glory. Interweaving historical accounts with newly uncovered details, Levy reconstructs Orellana’s journey as the first European to navigate the world’s largest river. Every twist and turn of the powerful Amazon holds new wonders and the risk of death. Levy gives a long-overdue account of the Amazon’s people—some offering sustenance and guidance, others hostile, subjecting the invaders to gauntlets of unremitting attacks and signs of terrifying rituals. Violent and beautiful, noble and tragic, River of Darkness is riveting history and breathtaking adventure that will sweep readers on a voyage unlike any other. Praise for Buddy Levy and River of Darkness “In River of Darkness, Buddy Levy recounts Orellana’s headlong dash down the Amazon. Like Mr. Levy’s last book, Conquistador, about the conquest of Mexico, River of Darkness presents a fast-moving tale of triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds. . . . Though impromptu, the expedition was one of the most amazing adventures of all time.” —Wall Street Journal “An exciting, well-plotted excursion down the Amazon River with the early Spanish conquistador. . . . [A] richly textured account of the rogue, rebel and visionary whose discovery still resonates today.” —Kirkus Reviews “A rollicking adventure . . . Levy successfully conveys the Amazon’s power and majesty, while shedding light on the futility of humanity’s attempt to tame it.” —The A.V. Club

Download or read book Explorers of the Amazon written by Anthony Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riotously colorful history of adventures, chronicling more than 400 years in the exploration of the world's most formidable and enigmatic river system. Photographs and maps.

Download or read book A Pictorial History of America written by Samuel Griswold Goodrich and published by . This book was released on 1850 with total page 928 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Expeditions Into the Valley of the Amazons 1539 1540 1639 written by Clements Robert Markham and published by . This book was released on 1859 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Jungle Book written by Yann Gross and published by Aperture Foundation. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana set out on his search for cinnamon in 1541, he could not have anticipated that his travels would bring him to the bends of the world s longest river: the Amazon. Long a witness to evangelization campaigns, infrastructure development, and natural resource extraction, the river continues to arouse greed, competition, and fascination in its visitors. Following in the footsteps of past expeditions, The Jungle Book is a visual travel diary comprising discreetly staged scenes that reveal the diverse worlds of contemporary Amazonia and its surrounding areas. Photographer Yann Gross worked with different local communities in order to explore their lives in a time of ecological disintegration. Once immersed in their domestic world, the viewer soon forgets romantic cliches of forgotten lands and noble savages, and begins to question the guiding ideals of progress and development that inform escapist fantasies of the global south."

Download or read book The Discovery of the Amazon written by Gaspar de Carvajal and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Discovery of the Amazon According to the Account of Friar Gaspar de Carvajal written by Gaspar de Carvajal and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Conquistadors written by Michael Wood and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-05-14 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Spanish conquest of the Americas in the 16th century was one of the most important and cataclysmic events in history. Spanish expeditions endured incredible hardships in order to open up the lands of the 'New World', and few stories in history can match these for drama and endurance. In Conquistadors, Michael Wood follows in the footsteps of some of the greatest of the Spanish adventurers travelling from the forests of Amazonia to Lake Titicaca, the deserts of North Mexico, the snowpeaks of the Andes and the heights of Machu Picchu. He experiences the epic journeys of Cortes, Pizarro, Orellana and Cabeza de Vaca, and explores the turbulent and terrifying events surrounding the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires. Wood brings these stories to vivid life, highlighting both the heroic accomplishments and the complex moral legacy of the European invasion. Conquistadors is Michael Wood at his best - thoughtful, provocative and gripping history.

Download or read book The Discovery of Guiana and the Journal of the Second Voyage Thereto written by Sir Walter Raleigh and published by . This book was released on 1901 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Golden Dream written by Robert Silverberg and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-04 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most persistent legends in the annals of New World exploration is that of the Land of Gold. This mythical site was located over vast areas of South America (and later, North America); the search for it drove some men mad with greed and, as often as not, to their untimely deaths. In this history of quest and adventure, Robert Silverberg traces the fate of Old World explorers lured westward by the myth of El Dorado. From the German conquistadores licensed by the Spanish king to operate out of Venezuela, to the journeys of Gonzalo Pizarro in the Amazon basin, and to the nearly miraculous voyage of Francisco Orellana to the mouth of the Amazon River, encountering the warlike women who gave the river its name, violence and bloodshed accompanied the determined adventurers. Sir Walter Raleigh and a host of other explorers spent small fortunes and many lives trying to locate Manoa, a city that was rumored to be El Dorado—City of Gold. Celebrated science fiction author Robert Silverberg recreates these legendary quests in The Golden Dream: Seekers of El Dorado.

Download or read book World Without End written by Hugh Thomas and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following Rivers of Gold and The Golden Empire and building on five centuries of scholarship, World Without End is the epic conclusion of an unprecedented three-volume history of the Spanish Empire from “one of the most productive and wide-ranging historians of modern times” (The New York Times Book Review). The legacy of imperial Spain was shaped by many hands. But the dramatic human story of the extraordinary projection of Spanish might in the second half of the sixteenth century has never been fully told—until now. In World Without End, Hugh Thomas chronicles the lives, loves, conflicts, and conquests of the complex men and women who carved up the Americas for the glory of Spain. Chief among them is the towering figure of King Philip II, the cultivated Spanish monarch whom a contemporary once called “the arbiter of the world.” Cheerful and pious, he inherited vast authority from his father, Emperor Charles V, but nevertheless felt himself unworthy to wield it. His forty-two-year reign changed the face of the globe forever. Alongside Philip we find the entitled descendants of New Spain’s original explorers—men who, like their king, came into possession of land they never conquered and wielded supremacy they never sought. Here too are the Roman Catholic religious leaders of the Americas, whose internecine struggles created possibilities that the emerging Jesuit order was well-positioned to fill. With the sublime stories of arms and armadas, kings and conquistadors come tales of the ridiculous: the opulent parties of New Spain’s wealthy hedonists and the unexpected movement to encourage Philip II to conquer China. Finally, Hugh Thomas unearths the first indictments of imperial Spain’s labor rights abuses in the Americas—and the early attempts by its more enlightened rulers and planters to address them. Written in the brisk, flowing narrative style that has come to define Hugh Thomas’s work, the final volume of this acclaimed trilogy stands alone as a history of an empire making the transition from conquest to inheritance—a history that Thomas reveals through the fascinating lives of the people who made it. Praise for World Without End “Readers will not find a more reliable guide to the maturing Spanish Empire. . . . World Without End reminds us that the far-flung Spanish Empire was the work of many minds and hands, and by the end their myriad stories carry a cumulative charge.”—The New York Times Book Review “A sweeping, encyclopedic history of the arrogance, ambition, and ideology that fueled the quest for empire.”—Kirkus Reviews “Literary power is a vital part of a great historian’s armoury. As in his earlier books, Thomas demonstrates here that he has this in abundance.”—Financial Times “A vivid climax to Hugh Thomas’s three-volume history of imperial Spain.”—The Telegraph “Thomas clearly excels in the Spanish history of religion, politics, and culture, [and] successfully shows that Spain’s global ambition knew no bounds.”—Publishers Weekly

Download or read book Pizarro and the Conquest of Peru written by Frederick Albion Ober and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The River Sea written by Marshall DeBruhl and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its discovery by Europeans in 1500, explorers, visionaries, soldiers of fortune, men of God, scientists, and slavers have been drawn to the legendary Amazon. The River Sea is a sweeping chronicle of those brave and hardy souls, ranging from the Spanish seafarer Vicente Pinzón, who discovered the river, to contemporary heroes and heroines, like Sister Dorothy Stang and Chico Mendes, whose efforts to save the rain forest cost them their lives. Among the vast cast of characters who people this drama of the Amazon are Francisco de Orellana, the first European to traverse the river from the Andes to the sea; the fiery priest Bartolomé de las Casas, defender of the indigenous peoples; the great scientist explorers Alexander von Humboldt and Alfred Russel Wallace; the madman and psychopath Lope de Aguirre; and the Peruvian Evangeline, Isabel Godin, who in 1769 crossed the continent, braving the terrors of the jungles to reunite with her husband, whom she had not seen in twenty years. The River Sea is a compelling account of five centuries of the history, the myths, and the legends of Río Amazonas, the most exotic and fascinating locale on earth.

Download or read book The Last Days of the Incas written by Kim MacQuarrie and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-17 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documents the epic conquest of the Inca Empire as well as the decades-long insurgency waged by the Incas against the Conquistadors, in a narrative history that is partially drawn from the storytelling traditions of the Peruvian Amazon Yora people. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.

Download or read book Where Is the Amazon written by Sarah Fabiny and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without risking life or limb, readers can explore the wonders and beauty of the Amazon in this Where Is...? title. Human beings have inhabited the banks of the Amazon River since 13,000 BC and yet they make up just a small percentage of the "population" of this geographic wonderland. The Amazon River basin teems with life—animal and plant alike. It's a rainforest that is home to an estimated 390 billion individual trees, 2.5 million species of insects, and hundreds of amazing creatures and plants that can either cure diseases, or, like the poison dart frog, kill with a single touch. Where Is the Amazon? reveals the amazing scale of a single rainforest that we are still trying to understand today and that, in many ways, supports our existence on this planet.

Download or read book Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest written by Matthew Restall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An update of a popular work that takes on the myths of the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, featuring a new afterword. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest reveals how the Spanish invasions in the Americas have been conceived and presented, misrepresented and misunderstood, in the five centuries since Columbus first crossed the Atlantic. This book is a unique and provocative synthesis of ideas and themes that were for generations debated or perpetuated without question in academic and popular circles. The 2003 edition became the foundation stone of a scholarly turn since called The New Conquest History. Each of the book's seven chapters describes one "myth," or one aspect of the Conquest that has been distorted or misrepresented, examines its roots, and explodes its fallacies and misconceptions. Using a wide array of primary and secondary sources, written in a scholarly but readable style, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest explains why Columbus did not set out to prove the world was round, the conquistadors were not soldiers, the native Americans did not take them for gods, Cortés did not have a unique vision of conquest procedure, and handfuls of vastly outnumbered Spaniards did not bring down great empires with stunning rapidity. Conquest realities were more complex--and far more fascinating--than conventional histories have related, and they featured a more diverse cast of protagonists-Spanish, Native American, and African. This updated edition of a key event in the history of the Americas critically examines the book's arguments, how they have held up, and why they prompted the rise of a New Conquest History.

Download or read book Social ecological Systems of Latin America Complexities and Challenges written by Luisa E. Delgado and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-10-31 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human societies are influencing nature in such a way that their independent analysis is no longer suitable. Fortunately, social-ecological systems provide a conceptual framework for the interconnected analysis of societies and ecosystems. However, in the case of Latin America, the complexity of social-ecological processes undermined a much-needed compilation of theoretical concepts, methods and case studies. Increasing readers’ understanding of such systems using a postnormal approach, the book discusses current concepts and methods with examples of studies from eight countries. It is a useful resource for social actors, government decision makers and scholars.