Alumni Travel Reading: Amazon River

Author William Balée explores the native communities of the Amazon forests, discussing how their knowledge and technology are vital to not only the preservation of Amazonian land and wildlife, but ecology across the world. This book was the winner of the Society for Economic Botany's Mary W. Klinger Book Award in 2014.

This book examines how the geologic history of the Amazon has been a driving force in shaping the biodiversity of both flora and fauna. Written by leading scientists in Amazonian research, it is an indepth review of the palaeogeographic, palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental evolution of northern South America.

Purchase this book from Amazon or borrow it from your local library.

“Engagingly written, theoretically inventive, and vividly illustrated, the book introduces a diverse range of characters--from sixteenth-century explorers and their native rivals to nineteenth-century naturalists and contemporary ecologists, logging company executives, and river-traders. A natural history of a different kind, In Amazonia shows how humans, animals, rivers, and forests all participate in the making of a region that remains today at the center of debates in environmental politics.” Publisher.

Purchase this book from Amazon or borrow it from your local library.

In her memoir, lemur expert, Patricia Chapple Wright, describes her search for a mate for her pet-shop purchased owl monkey. This search takes her to the Amazon, where, in a remote research station in the wilds of Peru, she undergoes the experiences which lead to her career as a noted scientist.

Not available through Penn Libraries, but check it out from your local library.

Ed Stafford, National Geographic’s Adventurer of the Year for 2010, is the only known man to have walked the entire length of the Amazon. If you are taking the trip to Machu Picchu, you might also take a look at Mark Adams’ Turn Right at Machu Picchu (2012) another in the Plume series, “One Step at a Time.”

Not available through Penn Libraries, but borrow it from your local library.

An all-encompassing collection of pieces written by some of Peru's most prominent thinkers and leaders, as well as those living in the communities of the land. The Peru Reader explores Peruvian culture throughout the years, and how the nation has been shaped by the politics of past and present centuries.

Looking at Peru's culture from pre-Columbian times to today, Ferreira and Dargent-Chamot, provide an in depth look at the social integration of Peru’s Indian and Hispanic population. In particular, the two authors focus on how Peru’s geography has been an important factor in its cultural and social expression.

true and thrilling adventure of a young married couple who survive a plane crash who are forced to raft hundreds of miles across Peru and Bolivia, ending up in a channel to nowhere.