The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey | Candice Millard

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey | Candice Millard | Teddy takes a South American vacation!

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The River of Doubt...

	The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey Candice Millard Broadway, 2006 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 209 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt?s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

The River of Doubt?it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron.

After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil?s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever.

Along the way, Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide. The River of Doubt brings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived.

From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest to the darkest night of Theodore Roosevelt?s life, here is Candice Millard?s dazzling debut.

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It's a great book!

It should not be easy to mix history, action, geography, ornithology...in one book, but this book is exceptionally well balanced. The author gives not only the details of Theodore Roosevelt and his companions heroic journey across the uncharted rain forests of the Amazon, but provides amazingly deep insight of the wild life of the rain forests, and it's first explorers. I rarely find books that makes me 100% satisfied, but this was that kind. It is a really great book!

Teddy takes a South American vacation!

After Theodore Roosevelt ran and lost the election for President on the Bull Moose ticket in 1912, he felt he needed an adventure into the depths of South America. Indeed TR was prone to these excursions since he was an experienced Cowboy in the West and he had done safaris in Africa.
Candice Millard tells a true story which few people know about. Theodore Roosevelt was looking for adventure in South America. By God he did indeed get the adventure of a lifetime.
Teddy's friend suggested a survey of the Rio da Duvida, The River of Doubt an unchartered capillary of the Amazon River. This area was both treacherous, unmapped and very dangerous. The team he assembled for this expeditionary force was both ill equipped and not familiar in the requirements needed for such a journey.
The President traveled with his son Kermit on this exotic adventure. The travel was organized by Colonel Rondon. The travel was always dangerous and at times reckless. Mr. Roosevelt nearly died of a tropical fever. In the end they indeed did survive thanks in a huge part to the efforts of Colonel Rondon. Less than 7 years later TR Roosevelt would die in his bed at Sagamore Hill, Long Island.
I learned a great deal in Candice Millard's depiction of these South American episodes. Her prose was both informative and very entertaining. Bravo! Five Stars!!

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A Magnifent Portrayal Of An American Hero

How delightful to read of a former president who was truly a man of honor. In Teddy Roosevelt's treacherous expedition down the River Of Doubt, a previously unchartered tributary of the Amazon River, you see a man who consistently could have used his status to gain privilege. However, this Roosevelt, time and again, rather than being an elitist, shows himself to be a true meritocracist, always honoring hard work, determination, and discipline over rank.
The circumstances the men on his expedition found themselves in, constantly tested the metal of each of them. Roosevelt, fell deathly ill. Rather than burden the others, and put them at peril, he decided to take his own life. Realizing the damaging effect his death would have on his son (his son Kermit went on the expedition to protect his father), Roosevelt decided not to take the lethal dose of morphine he brought with him. Despite high fevers, and painful infected abscesses from a former injury, he did all he could to carry his own weight and not burden the other men.
In adventure, after adventure, you will come to love TR, and to see his humanity as it was never before portrayed.

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Teddy tests his doubts; pace cracks like a page-turning novel

Fastpaced account of the South American River journey that hastened TRs early death a few years later. What started out as a sight-seeing trip turned into a journey of exploration of the River of Doubt--then the official name of a river nearly a thousand miles long that had never been mapped. Ex-President Teddy was invited to make the journey casually by Brazilian politicians, and when he accepted, the team of leaders and Brazilian Telegraph workers ended up on a journey that involved deaths, capsized dugout canoes, and Indian encounters any of which could have left the entire team dead.

As it was, TR became deathly ill from an infection and malaria, and in fact at one point he told the team to go forward without him so he could put himself out of his misery. The team (including TRs own son) refused, and he and the rest just made it out alive.

Millard tells the tale with few wasted words and keeps the pace cracking like a page-turning novel.

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Holy Jumping Monkeys!

What an amazing story this was! Reading this book blew my mind in so many ways I'm not sure where to begin. Let's start with saying Teddy Roosevelt was one amazing man and an incredibly tough SOB. They sure don't make them like they used to. There was just so much in here that I didn't know about and I can't believe that I didn't know about. Did you know that TR was shot immediately before a campaign speech? The bullet was partially slowed by its passage through the folded speech and his glasses case he had in his jacket but it still penetrated five inches into his chest. Then, with a bleeding chest wound, he still gave the speech before getting medical attention!

That's just one little anecdote in this book about the amazing exploration that TR did with his son Kermit, Amercian ornithologist George Cherrie, and Brazilian Colonel Candido Rondon, charting the River of Doubt in Amazonia. This was one of the most amazing true stories that I've read and it makes all the action adventure heroes you've ever admired seem like complete wimps. The headwaters of the Rio da Duvida were discovered by Colonel Candida in the early 1900's but although he wanted to chart it his expedition was too battered by simply getting there to proceed and they had to turn back. TR shows up in 1913 after loosing the presidential election and decides to go down the river with Rondon. No white man had ever been down the river and no one even knew where it went. They mount an expedition, take months to even get to the headwaters, lose most of their livestock, provisions and all their boats before they even get there but they still head down the river using dugouts bought from local indians. The story of their four month river trek is marked by harrowing privation, disease, near starvation, hostile indians, despair, drownings, and murder. I was so amazed by what I was reading I gave a running commentary to my wife as I went along and I remember telling her at one point that I just don't see how they are going to make it. I really didn't. Not everyone does make it unfortunately. TR himself was so close to death through malaria, infection and starvation that it is incredible that he survived, although his privations did catch up with him later and was likely responsible for his early death a few years later at age 60. I don't want to talk about the details of the book so much that this review becomes a spoiler but everyone should read this book. It will probably leave you savagely disappointed with the quality of presidents we've had recently but it will also leave you amazed at how unbelievably courageous and special one of our presidents was. The life story of Colonel Rondon is just as remarkable as TR's, if not more so, and I'd unhesitatingly recommend the book just for the parts about Rondon. They were two amazing men and true heroes. I mean it. Hero is a word that gets too indiscriminately applied today, but if there is such a thing as heroes these guys are it. The book actually got me thinking about who would win a toughest president competition....then I remembered Washington and his war campaigns, especially Valley Forge, and Old Hickory was pretty darn tough too. I don't know who would win that competition but I don't think anyone would want to bet against TR afer reading this. I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone, you won't be disappointed by this story.

I do have one reservation about this book, which involves the writing style, which is the only reason I give this book four stars instead of five. The actual story was an amazing six star reading experience, but Millard's writing, while mostly beautiful, clear, and compelling could become very irritating at many points because of repetitious foreshadowing. One example has to do with the murder that takes place. Millard presages the event and identifies the murderer no less than four or five times before the actual event takes place. I feel the book would have been much more suspenseful and a better read if she hadn't done the foreshadowing at all, but if you're going to do it, once is enough. The repetition in this book lengthened the book unnecessarily and detracted from the reading experience. Do not let this keep you from reading the book though, you'll learn to just skip a paragraph ahead when she starts repeating herself. Don't miss this one, you'll not read a better true story this year.

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