The River of Doubt – Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard,\u00a0historian and former writer and editor for National Geographic, was originally published in hardcover by Doubleday in 2005.\u00a0\u00a0The paperback edition shown in the photo above was published by Broadway Books, an imprint of The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.<\/p>\n
101 years ago today, on February 27, 1914, former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt stepped into\u00a0one of\u00a07 heavy\u00a0dugout canoes in the jungles of Brazil and set out to explore a river known only to native tribes, the Rio da Duvida (River of Doubt).\u00a0 It was a little over a year since his stinging election\u00a0defeat seeking a 3rd term as U.S. President in the fall of 1912, this time as the candidate of the newly formed Bull Moose (Progressive) Party.<\/p>\n
The great Age of Exploration was virtually over.\u00a0 In 1909, American Robert Perry had reached the North Pole.\u00a0 In late December, 1911, Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten\u00a0the ill-fated British\u00a0explorer and hero\u00a0Robert Scott to the South Pole.\u00a0 Yet Roosevelt, famous for his daring, energy, and vitality, still dreamed of completing\u00a0a journey of scientific and geographic importance.<\/p>\n
Accompanying\u00a0Roosevelt were 3 Brazilians, 2 Americans, and a workforce of 16 Brazilian camaradas.\u00a0\u00a0The Brazilian explorers included\u00a0co-commander Colonel Candido Mareno da Silva Rondon, heroic commander of Brazil’s Strategic Telegraph Commission; military engineer and surveyor Lieutenant Joao Salustiano Lyra; and Dr. Jose Cajazeira.\u00a0 The Americans included naturalist George Cherrie and Roosevelt’s own son, Kermit Roosevelt.<\/p>\n
Colonel Rondon had\u00a0discovered and named the\u00a0Rio da Duvida 5 years earlier, when he had stumbled onto its source while on a telegraph line expedition in the Brazilian highlands.\u00a0 Even he had no clear idea where the river went.\u00a0 He suspected it might flow into the Madeira, the\u00a0principal tributary of the Amazon.\u00a0 The Madeira itself is 2,000 miles long and has a flow equal to that of the Congo, the 2nd largest river in the world by volume.\u00a0 If Rondon was right, Roosevelt’s expedition would place on the Brazilian map a river nearly 1,000 miles long through a huge mysterious and hitherto uncharted region.<\/p>\n
It is difficult, if not impossible, to envision any modern\u00a0high-ranking\u00a0American official, much less a President, having the desire or will to undertake such an arduous and\u00a0perilous journey.\u00a0 Teddy Roosevelt’s expedition faced rapids, waterfalls, wild animals, tropical diseases, potentially hostile natives, deadly in-fighting, exhaustion and starvation.\u00a0 All these dangers were\u00a0personally braved by each and every member of the expedition for\u00a02 entire\u00a0months\u00a0while completely cut off from any contact with, or hope of assistance from, the outside world.<\/p>\n
Candice Millard’s book is an exciting, fast-paced read.\u00a0 The River of Doubt is also\u00a0well-documented, beautifully written, and full of surprising information.\u00a0 I had never heard anything about this expedition before.\u00a0 The most disappointing thing about\u00a0The River of Doubt was how quickly it was over.\u00a0 In the end, it was a bold, adventurous,\u00a0but\u00a0also sad tale that\u00a0left me wanting more.\u00a0 Five stars and two thumbs up!\u00a0 – SPHP<\/p>\n
Want more?\u00a0\u00a0Subscribe free\u00a0to\u00a0new Lupe adventures and reviews<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span>!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The River of Doubt – Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard,\u00a0historian and former writer and editor for National Geographic, was originally published in hardcover by Doubleday in 2005.\u00a0\u00a0The paperback edition shown in the photo above was published by Broadway Books, an imprint of The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. … Continue reading Book Review: The River of Doubt – Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24],"tags":[1339,1337,557,1338],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-book-review","tag-candice-millar","tag-teddy-roosevelt","tag-the-river-of-doubt"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/adventuresoflupe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/RiverOfDoubt1.jpg?fit=240%2C240&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29893,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions\/29893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/97"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}