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Magdalena: River of Dreams: A Story of Colombia
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About Magdalena: River Of Dreams: A Story Of Colombia
Product Description A captivating new book from Wade Davis--award-winning, best-selling author and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence for more than a decade--that brings vividly to life the story of the great Río Magdalena, illuminating Colombia's complex past, present, and future Travelers often become enchanted with the first country that captures their hearts and gives them license to be free. For Wade Davis, it was Colombia. Now in a masterly new book, Davis tells of his travels on the mighty Magdalena, the river that made possible the nation. Along the way, he finds a people who have overcome years of conflict precisely because of their character, informed by an enduring spirit of place, and a deep love of a land that is home to the greatest ecological and geographical diversity on the planet. Only in Colombia can a traveler wash ashore in a coastal desert, follow waterways through wetlands as wide as the sky, ascend narrow tracks through dense tropical forests, and reach verdant Andean valleys rising to soaring ice-clad summits. Both a corridor of commerce and a fountain of culture, the wellspring of Colombian music, literature, poetry, and prayer, the Magdalena has served in dark times as the graveyard of the nation. And yet, always, it returns as a river of life. At once an absorbing adventure and an inspiring tale of hope and redemption, Magdalena Braids together memoir, history, and journalism to tell the epic story of Colombia. Review "Wade Davis narrates his fascinating, beautiful, and dangerous journey down the Río Magdalena – the heart of Colombia... Davis extols the virtues of these outlier regions and cultures as vital realms chock-full of exotic biota, majestic geography, extraordinary art, and empirical wisdom, all of which is essential for the health of the planet... a devotee’s pilgrimage... The narrative allow[s] the serendipity of the moment to fill in the adventure with compelling human interest stories and representative anecdotes, and of course histories... Davis’ desire to revitalize the river of his dreams is rendered poignantly in Magdalena – a vivid portrait of his hopes and fears for the region" — Richard Horan, Christian Science Monitor "In Magdalena: River of Dreams, Mr. Davis returns to Colombia, this time to produce a travelogue of its most important waterway... As a primer on a complicated country by an interested outsider, it greatly succeeds. Most of the stops on Mr. Davis’s journey are accessible to a tourist, and thoughtful adventurers will want to replicate it... Compelling." — Jennie Erin Smith, Wall Street Journal "Illustrative... Davis's deep knowledge of and decades-long familiarity with Colombia notwithstanding, the freshest and most insightful sections occur when he is in the company of resident experts, and he is gracious enough to acknowledge that debt... Illuminating." —The Times Literary Supplement "Davis is a powerful, penetrating and immensely knowledgeable writer... Magdalena is a geography book about a river that is also a political history of Colombia, an admonition of ecological disaster, an impassioned defence of indigenous wisdom, and a memoir of the author’s various travels and friendships over the years... Evanescent... Magdalena is steeped in a physical sense of Colombia: the landscapes, the disreputable backstreets, the irrepressibly resilient people." — Charles Nichols, The Guardian (UK) " Magdalena is a revelatory and often enchanting book." — The Economist "Magnificent... If the Magdalena made Colombia possible, Colombia may just be what made Wade Davis—this generation’s most extraordinary anthropologist—possible... Vivid... For all the beauty and overwhelming profusion rendered in the soaring prose of Wade Davis’s book, readers are not spared Colombia’s dark side.. And yet, somehow Davis emerges from his unflinching examinations infused with an authentic hope for the future now open to Colombia." —Sarah Chayes, Book
