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The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey |  | Author: Candice Millard
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Seller: Ivy_League_Books
Rating:  273 reviews
Sales Rank: 2720
Media: Paperback
Pages: 432
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0767913736
Dewey Decimal Number: 918.113045
EAN: 9780767913737
ASIN: 0767913736
Publication Date: October 10, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.
The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron.
After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever.
Along the way, Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide. The River of Doubt brings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived.
From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest to the darkest night of Theodore Roosevelt’s life, here is Candice Millard’s dazzling debut.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 273
 It Gave me a New Appreciation for TR December 5, 2005
John D. Sherwood (Washington, DC USA)
132 out of 134 found this review helpful
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.
Fascinating October 27, 2005
Kat Bakhu (Albuquerque, NM United States)
194 out of 203 found this review helpful
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.
T.R. Survived, But was Never the Same Again October 22, 2005
Alan Rockman (Upland, California)
52 out of 55 found this review helpful
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.
Roosevelt's Adventures on the Amazon October 29, 2005
C. Hutton (East Coast, USA)
41 out of 45 found this review helpful
There is a spate of books concerning Theodore Roosevelt's life: his New York years and first marriage, his cowboy days in the Dakota's, the Spanish-American War phrase and his presidency. Until last year, there were few books about his retirement decade until Patricia O'Toole's "When Trumpets Call." His dangerous exploration of the Amazon rain forest covers a mere 7 pages in Ms. O'Toole's biography. That exploration is the subject of "The River of Doubt."
Does this brief three month trip of discovery on the Rio da Duvida (River of Doubt) warrent a full scale book? In Ms. Millard's superb account of the near fatal expedition, the answer is yes. The former president was an adrenaline junkie who needed to forget his loss in the 1912 campaign for the White House. He found all the adventure he would ever crave on the Rio da Duvida, for he was way in over his head. If not for their guide, Colonel Candido Rondon, no one would have made it out alive -- Roosevelt's disappearance would have top Amelia Earhart as the mystery of the century. This adventure yarn focuses, not on the political animal, but on a man who would never quit and never did.
History comes alives in a riveting adventure April 25, 2007
Boston Reader (Boston, MA USA)
22 out of 23 found this review helpful
I loved this book. This book was great in so many ways. It is a great portrait of Teddy Roosevelt in his quest to explore an uncharted tributary of the Amazon after his presidency. It is a fascinating look at life in the unexplored rain forest - featuring the people, plants, animals and general ecology. It's a riveting life-or-death adventure. The author does a great job moving between the people in the present drama, their backgrounds, and the "life of the forest." It's a beautifully written page-turner. It leaves one with a profound sense of the place, people and time. I can't recommend this book more highly. Years ago, I read Undaunted Courage, the story of Lewis and Clark's expedition. I liked it, but that never grabbed me like River of Doubt did. This sets a new standard for "exploration history" literature. Read it!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 273
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