A history of the Amazon, its peoples, and those who have explored the river by an author with unsurpassed knowledge and experience in the region By far the world's largest river, the Amazon flows through the greatest expanse of tropical rain forest on earth. Human beings settled in Amazonia ten thousand years ago and learned to live well on its bounty. Europeans first saw the Amazon around 1500 and started settling there in the seventeenth century. Always in fear or awe of the jungle, they tried in vain to introduce crops and livestock. John Hemming's account of the river and its history is full of larger-than-life personalities this unique environment attracted: explorers, missionaries, and naturalists among them. By the nineteenth century, Amazonian natives had almost been destroyed by alien diseases and slavery, as well as violent class rebellion.
