The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann (PDF)

Description

The #1 New York Times bestseller from the author of Killers of the Flower MoonIn 1925, the legendary British explorer Percy Fawcett ventured into the Amazon jungle, in search of a fabled civilization. He never returned. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called “The Lost City of Z.” In this masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett’s quest for “Z” and his own journey into the deadly jungle, as he unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century. Look for David Grann’s new book, The Wager, coming in April 2023!

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I found this book interesting in many ways. It was easy to read since it touched many subjects that are familiar to me. The book covers historic facts of the Victorian age and its influence in the world but specially South America and the countries of Bolivia and Brazil whose Amazonian region was and is difficult to explore or study. It is well balanced since the book covers many areas that help understand different points of view of previous times compared to present times. I found answers to questions that come up as you read this book. For instance, to refer to the tribes that populate the Amazonian forests as savages, made me question who is anyone to judge, specially after the atrocities of WWI, described in the book as well as all the inhuman spectacle of WW2. Also, it explains what was happening in the areas related to the fields he got to be involved in like archeology and the discovery of Machu Pichu which may have influenced him.Fawcett’s motivations could have been banal if they were glory or becoming famous but he showed an ethical position not usual in his time which was to approach the indigenous people in a non violent way, trying not to use arms and ordering to drop arms even if danger was felt. He would raise his hands and confront the Indians which gave him good results since he got to be treated as a sort of friend. This respectful behavior, considering the times, was something positive to take in account when trying to define Fawcett’s personality which could show his humanity, something to learn from him. Now, consider that Indiana Jones is partly based in the real life of Percy Fawcett and P.F. is one of the characters of one of his movies; however, Indiana Jones had no problem in shooting for entertainment.Having lived in Bolivia and having done some exploration myself I may have a different take to this adventure. To start, one of Fawcett’s motivation was as normal as to answer why people climb mountains, the answer is,” because it’s there”. I have done hiking going from La Paz at 12000 ft. above sea level to about 15000 ft. and then down to the tropics of Yungas which is the start of the Amazonian jungle all along an Inca road which was partly well preserved considering hundreds of years of use. After getting familiar with this subtropical region, it happened that I read The mines of King Salomon and this book, cited in Grann’s book as well, inspired me to go farther. My plan was to go to an uncharted area in the forest called Madidi, which is a national park now. My motivation was just to see what no one else has seen. I was able to enlist two university friends who seemed interested but who back down at the last minute. Next year I tried again but I had a sudden back ache problem. Going back to the book, Fawcett’s intentions may have been to attain fame by finding not El Dorado but something like Machu Pichu which was “found” in 1911. He visited Cusco and Tiahuanacu and was able to marvel at the achievements of these civilizations. But destiny put him in the Bolivian jungle with the aid of the British government, it wasn’t something that he was looking for but that opened his eyes and his innate explorer spirit.Before I even finished reading this book I was compelled to read about the original source, Percy Fawcett’s own words, compiled in a book “Lost trail, lost cities” by Brian Fawcett, his son. By reading it, I found out that in his first trip he was hired by the Bolivian government, P. Fawcett does not mention Brazil in the first expedition which was actually work. Now, there are historical details that are not clear. The border problem between Bolivia and Brazil was already established in 1903 after a short war between these two countries and the result was the annexation of the Acre, an area of 190,000 square Kilometers (75,000 sq mls), more than ¾ the size of UK. By the way, something that this book could have in next edition is a better map, the map of Bolivia is not clear.There are details in the Fawcett’s book that could have been part of Grann’s book or even the movie, like the moment when, after departing La Paz, one of many mules P.F. had, runs away and that was the mule that had the $£1000 in gold he received as part of the payment from the Bolivian government, an interesting historical detail, a “jingling treasure” in the saddle bags. However, Fawcett explains that the mule was brought back by local people who he rewarded. P .F. describes foreigners by name but there is no mention of Bolivian dignitaries with the exception of the president of Bolivia who was taking matters with his own hands and who knew these lands very well. The region next to the Brazilian border bears his name, Pando.“All who have lived in these lands and learned to know them fell captive to their irresistible charm”, Fawcett writes as part of his reflexions. Is this one of the motives he kept coming back?

⭐The saga of Col. Percy Fawcett’s disappearance into the Amazon jungle in 1925 is mentioned in many of the books I’ve read on alternate versions of history. In one book, Col Fawcett finds an entrance to the “inner earth” where a race of superbeing live, and he is unable to get back home. In others, Fawcett finds the fabulous jungle city and joins its inhabitants, deciding this advanced civilization should remain unknown to the rest of the world. I had developed a curiosity about Col. Fawcett, along with wondering if there really could be remnants of an advanced civilization in the huge area of Amazon rain forest. I picked up this book to find out if author David Grann had discovered Col Fawcett’s fate.I was unaware of how many Fawcett fanatics were out there, people who have actually gone in search of him or some indication of what happened to him, perhaps hoping that they too might enter the fabulous jungle city. The author of The Lost City of Z became one of those fanatics, finding himself totally caught up in the adventure of trying to find out what happened to Fawcett. This book is a combination of the story of Fawcett and his family (especially long-suffering wife Nina, and son Jack, who, along with his friend Raleigh Rimell, went with Fawcett on that final ill-fated trip) and the author’s own trip to the Brazilian interior following in Fawcett’s footsteps.It turns out that quite a lot is known about Fawcett’s last journey in search of the lost city he called “Z.” The Royal Geographical Society (RGS), based in London, had sponsored Fawcett’s trips and this venerable society still exists, along with records of Fawcett’s journeys on their behalf. The RGS mission was to map the unknown parts of the world, and, to that end, they trained and sent “explorers” into unmapped areas. This was an era before the academic disciplines of Anthropology and Archeology had made much headway. Many explorers were wealthy men who used their fortunes to go on adventures that also added to knowledge of the earth: its land masses, plant life, animals, and primitive peoples. Fawcett, alas for him, was not wealthy due to the fact that his parents had squandered the family fortune. He needed funding from the RGS to continue pursuing his theories about the Amazon jungle.Fawcett, inspired by the stories of earlier Amazon explorers who reported seeing cities and large populations, believed that there was a fabulous stone city somewhere in the jungle that was part of a civilization that had once thrived, but was now mostly gone. Unlike some explorers who treated the natives as enemies, Fawcett felt that the idigenous tribes could be of great help and tried to befriend them in order to get information. He felt he could make better contact with them if he traveled light, without a large retinue of guides and pack animals. On his final fateful journey, he took only his son, and his son’s friend Raleigh. None of them returned from this expedition.So did the author find the answer to Fawcett’s disappearance? Well, sort of. With far better equipment than Fawcett had, the author did find and speak to natives who had stories, objects, or memories of Fawcett. The preponderance of evidence showed that Fawcett had traveled, against the advice of the nearest tribe, into an area inhabited by a hostile tribe and he and his companions were most likely killed. But no one could actually confirm this.This book takes you into the world of Percy Fawcett and his obsession with the lost city, but it is not until the last chapter that we learn that the Colonel’s vision of a great civilization in the jungle may not be far from the truth. This brings me to my biggest complaint about the book. Why did the author take such a long route to the punch line (yes, there was an advanced civilization), then tell us so little about what is now known about cities and civilizations in the jungle?He does give us the main objections of “experts” on why a large, thriving civilization could not exist. First, people said the natives were not intelligent enough to have created a civilization. When times changed and there was acknowledgement that it was not just Englishmen who could be civilized, objection number two appeared: the environment was too harsh to support a large population in any comfort. In fact, early explorers had an incredibly difficult time finding food and dealing with the bugs, the incessant rain and swamp, and the raging rivers, However, Fawcett had discovered that the tribes he contacted had plenty of food and seemed to manage just fine.Actually, if you do some research, you’ll learn that within the Amazon jungle is an area of man-made fertile land called the “terra preta.” It was created by an unknown process in the past and has remained very fertile to this day, suitable for growing large crops. And there is evidence that the population was once very much larger than today and a system of roads joined numerous villages. There is so much more to this story left to be told.I recommend another two books.

⭐by Anthony Smith tells about the earliest Western visitors to the Amazon, including the stories about early explorers seeing cities and roads. I also enjoyed

⭐, the story of John Franklin and his obsession with finding a northwest passage through the Arctic Ocean in the 1800s. In the cases of Fawcett and Franklin, the wife of each devoted the rest of her life to finding the truth of what happened to her husband. Being the wife, son or daughter of an obsessed adventurer was a tough and lonely life. The explorers themselves dealt with a constant danger of death. Reading about these explorations makes me intensely grateful that I don’t have to deal with the terrible hardships these men suffered in trying to prove their theories and bring back knowledge of places unknown. For Percy Fawcett – and many others – the final journey into the unknown was a one-way trip.

⭐This was like reading about two treasure hunts rolled into one.The Lost City of Z recounts how Percy Fawcett, his son and his son’s friend set off into the Amazon rainforest in 1925 to find the City of Z, or El Dorado. Fawcett was an experienced and seasoned explorer with incredibly physical and mental resilience against the climate, diseases, bugs and animals the Amazon greeted him with. However, he and his two companions disappeared and despite several search parties, was never heard from again. Rumors were rife as to their fate (death by starvation, murdered by an Amazon tribe, killed by animals, living with an Amazonian community and even existing in a type of parallel universe) but none fully substantiated.With unprecedented access to Fawcett’s private letters, journals and maps, the author, David Grann, sets out on his own treasure hunt to try and find out what happened to Fawcett and whether or not he did find Z- the city of legend. Grann did not only dig in libraries and archives, but went to the Amazon, himself, attempting to find Fawcett’s trail. Not an easy feat, as Fawcett kept his exact path secret, hoping to make sure he was not pipped to the post by rival explorer Dr Rice.Grann’s descriptions of the Amazon and the hardships of the landscape actually take you there. You feels his frustration when he hits dead ends.This does not feel like reading from a history book. Grann alternates Fawcett’s journey with his own and also provides background as to why Fawcett felt the need to go on this quest and several before. A great read.

⭐As a complete layman (I thought it was a novel) I almost gave up reading when I realized it was a more complex book than that. I persevered and then got into the ‘rythm’ of the ‘ who was who’. I wish I had read this interesting and inspiring book when I was a youngster. I (at 73) have never been remotely interested in this subject – until now. I have some catching up to do.

⭐I loved the story and I think it is well told. It’s slightly predictable format of paralleling the author’s journey with that of Percival Fawcett but it is such a great story that it doesn’t really matter. The research is thorough and the writing evokes place and time very well. The consequences of Fawcett’s decisions and actions aren’t always explored. He seems to be a character that goes on when others falter and that is their hardship to deal with. I found him to be an interesting if not sympathetic character. I suspect that we will always be left with the feeling that there is more to know.

⭐In 1925 an English explorer called Percy Harrison Fawcett took his son and his son’s best friend into the Amazon jungle in search of the legendary El Dorado, Fawcett’s Lost City of Z. The three men were never seen again. Whether they were eaten by cannibals or killed by wild animals or were simply swallowed up in the green hell of the Amazon no-one will ever know, though scores of people have subsequently died in attempts to establish what actually happened. Deservedly shortlisted in 2009 for the Samuel Johnson Prize, American journalist David Grann’s rivetting account of Fawcett’s obsessive life-long quest for an ancient civilization first reported by Spanish conquistadores is a thoroughly engrossing mix of history, biography and derring-do adventure. If I have a gripe it’s that the print size of this edition is miniscule and that the index references appear to be out by a couple of pages, but this in no way detracts from what stands as a gripping, well-researched and thought-provoking read right up to its last tantalising chapter.

⭐A real gem this, and my favourite book of 2009. An absolutely perfect book for those lovers of adventure and old romance, and any who feel that giddy ‘grip’ on the imagination when they think of El Dorado, conquistadors, clouds of poison darts, perilous rope bridges and cities of gold. I dare say any with a passing interest in South America would also greatly enjoy it. That continent interested me about as much as a bucket of beige paint, but after this wonderful book I have sought out as many books and articles about it as I could – everything from William H. Prescott to Hiram Bingham. None, as yet, have quite satisfied the fascination aroused here – certainly not so wholly as Grann manages to.Interweaving the modern-day investigations of the author, and the historic efforts of British explorer Col Fawcett to find the Lost City of Z, it is a compelling, fascinating read. A wonderful mixture of old and new. May the author turn his attentions to other such men who walked off the edge of the map and, if they found not the empires of wonder they aimed for, nevertheless mightily enlarged the hearts and fancies of man and boy alike for ages after.

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