The RIVER of DOUBT

Candice Millard brings Theodore Roosevelt's image to a new high level with this non-fiction thriller! After a near miss from an assassin's bullet and a failed run as the Bull Moose Party's candidate for his third Presidential term, Teddy decides to go on a speaking tour in South America. In Brazil, he teams up with hero and Brazilian explorer Colonel Candido Rondon to make a trip down an uncharted river in the Amazon forest. Sponsored by The American Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt, his son Kermit, naturalist George Cherrie, Col. Rondon and about twenty others enter the punishing realm of the Amazon with its many unknown tributaries, insects, animals and Indians.

Candice Millard describes the journey into the Amazonian jungle as "not just dark and dangerous but inescapably oppressive". The expedition of 12/12/1913 through 4/26/1914 meets with one calamity after another: loss of canoes and supplies, loss of life, sickness from malaria and typhoid fever, and attacks from a unknown Indian tribe. Roosevelt's imperialistic white attitude changed when he saw how the native camaradas endured and worked during the trip. Colonel Roosevelt at 5' 8" and Colonel Rondon at 5' 3" proved to be giants when it came time for heroics and bravery. Their exploratory effort rivals Dr. Livingstone's tribulations in discovering the sources of the Nile River as written in The Last Journals of David Livingstone.

The book is filled with wonderful tidbits about our 26th President, such as his relationship with his son Kermit, his innate need for physical challenges, and the Presidential Campaign speech he gave with two bullets from an assassination attempt still in his chest! Millard's descriptions of the indigenous insects and animals are summed up with "The creatures of the Amazon had become such masters of disguise that all that the men could see on either side of the river was verdant leaves and heavy vines". This book is not only well researched (48 pages of notes) and immensely enjoyable, but educational; yet, it reads like a historical-fiction mystery with fresh dangers emoting chapter after chapter.

If you like history with a flare, I highly recommend this non-fiction masterpiece. I continue to enjoy this type of writing. There was a lot of non-fiction published in 2011 following this genre also featuring ex-presidents, especially from America's imperialistic phase of the late 1890's and early 1900's.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: The would be assassin, John Schrank, said that President Mckinley's ghost told him to kill Roosevelt as a warning to anybody running for a third term. Schrank was found to be insane and died 29 years later in a mental hospital. Theodore Roosevelt wrote many books including a four volume The Winning of the West and Rough Riders. It is believed that his trip to the Amazon contributed to his early death at 60 years old. His son, Archie, telegraphed all the siblings "The old lion is dead".