The River of Doubt
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, C?ndido 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.