The Last Forest: The Amazon in the Age of Globalization

Everyone knows that cutting down trees in the Amazon is wrong, that people have no business living there and that the jungle should be left alone. But maybe that’s wrong. Following up on their 1981 book, Amazon, London and Kelly traveled throughout the region in 2003 and 2004 to see what’s changed in 25 years. They incorporate numerous viewpoints from countless interviews done all over the Amazon, and many of their conclusions—for example, that humans belong there and that deforestation isn’t always bad—contradict common wisdom. Letting their subjects speak for themselves, the authors bring us a story that’s far more about people than about the forest—which fits their central premise that to stop irreparable loss of the forest, we must understand the needs of the people living there.