



The Unconquered
In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes
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3.9 • 79 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The extraordinary true story of a journey into the deepest recesses of the Amazon to track one of the planet's last uncontacted indigenous tribes.
Even today there remain tribes in the far reaches of the Amazon rainforest that have avoided contact with modern civilization. Deliberately hiding from the outside world, they are the last survivors of an ancient culture that predates the arrival of Columbus in the New World. In this gripping first-person account of adventure and survival, author Scott Wallace chronicles an expedition into the Amazon’s uncharted depths, discovering the rainforest’s secrets while moving ever closer to a possible encounter with one such tribe—the mysterious flecheiros, or “People of the Arrow,” seldom-glimpsed warriors known to repulse all intruders with showers of deadly arrows. On assignment for National Geographic, Wallace joins Brazilian explorer Sydney Possuelo at the head of a thirty-four-man team that ventures deep into the unknown in search of the tribe. Possuelo’s mission is to protect the Arrow People. But the information he needs to do so can only be gleaned by entering a world of permanent twilight beneath the forest canopy.
Danger lurks at every step as the expedition seeks out the Arrow People even while trying to avoid them. Along the way, Wallace uncovers clues as to who the Arrow People might be, how they have managed to endure as one of the last unconquered tribes, and why so much about them must remain shrouded in mystery if they are to survive. Laced with lessons from anthropology and the Amazon’s own convulsed history, and boasting a Conradian cast of unforgettable characters—all driven by a passion to preserve the wild, but also wracked by fear, suspicion, and the desperate need to make it home alive—The Unconquered reveals this critical battleground in the fight to save the planet as it has rarely been seen, wrapped in a page-turning tale of adventure.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
National Geographic writer Wallace recounts his grueling odyssey into the remotest stretches of the Amazon Basin as he tracks down the "Arrow People," one of the last "uncontacted" tribes left in the world. Wallace's 34-member expedition was led by Sydney Possuelo, a legendary sertanista (a Brazilian hybrid of woodsman, explorer, and anthropologist). On the three-month trek by riverboat, canoe, and foot, the expedition was threatened by pumas, starvation, disease, hostile natives, and tensions that develop between men in close quarters. The mercurial Possuelo's mission seems paradoxical he wants to clearly identify the "Arrow People," but only so that in the future they will be left completely alone. The book is overlong, and in the early chapters, Wallace tends to repeat grand pronouncements about culture, history, and the environment. His best writing focuses on the details and daily grind of the expedition and, as the book progresses, on the simple struggle for survival. Wallace nicely captures the hostility and paranoia that threaten to tear the group apart. He's equally unsparing of his own insecurity and weakness, and the contrast between the threatened Amazon and the exhausted men brings the region's harsh beauties to life.
Customer Reviews
Truly an adventure
This book is a must read for those of us who dream of exotic lands and travels to the far reaches of the earth. Truly a twenty first century Indiana Jones like adventure.
One grasps the precarious situation of native peoples and how difficult a decision it is for non native populations to understand that for the Indians non contact has been and will always be the best option. Even the best of intentions are fraught with perils.
It's a very well written book that I would surely recommend to all of my friends.
It was hard to put down. I hated to see it end.
Riveting
Best adventure I’ve ever read. Full of amazing facts about the Amazon jungle and it’s many tribes. Beautifully written and full of description and lively action