Conversations from the Cullman Center: Into the Amazon: Larry Rohter with Barbara Weinstein

A thrilling biography of the Indigenous Brazilian explorer, scientist, statesman, and conservationist who guided Theodore Roosevelt on his journey down the River of Doubt.

Between 1890 and 1930, Cândido Rondon navigated scores of previously unmapped rivers, traversed untrodden mountain ranges, hacked his way through inhospitable jungles, and led Theodore Roosevelt and his son Kermit on their celebrated “River of Doubt” journey in 1913-14. Upon leaving the Brazilian Army in 1930, Rondon, himself of Indigenous descent, devoted the remainder of his life to not only writing about the region’s flora and fauna, but also advocating for the peoples who inhabited the rainforest and lobbying for the creation of a system of national parks. Rondon’s many achievements earned him three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize, and yet he has never received his due. Originally published in Brazil, Into the Amazon is the first comprehensive biography of the greatest tropical explorer in history.

Larry Rohter worked on Into the Amazon: The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist during his 2015-2016 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He will discuss his book with historian Barbara Weinstein.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Larry Rohter was the Rio de Janeiro bureau chief for the New York Times from 1998 to 2008 and held the same role at Newsweek from 1977 to 1982. He is the author of two previous books about Brazil, one in Portuguese and one in English: Deu no New York Times and Brazil on the Rise: The Story of a Country Transformed. He divides his time between the United States and Brazil.

Barbara Weinstein is Silver Professor of History at New York University and former president of the American Historical Association. Her publications include The Amazon Rubber Boom, 1850–1920; For Social Peace in Brazil: Industrialists and the Remaking of the Working Class in São Paulo, 1920–1964; and The Color of Modernity: São Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil. Her research has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Fulbright-Hays, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In 2017-2018, she was the Joanna Jackson Goldman Fellow at the Cullman Center, where she began research for an intellectual biography of the pioneering Latin Americanist and criminologist Frank Tannenbaum.
 

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