"Rampant greed, flagrant corruption, outsized ambition, the occaisional good intention, and a bizarre cast of characters all collide in a region rarely seen except through a misty cloud of myth and media hype. O'Connor has captured it all with insight, compassion, and a strong dose of humor. I can't recommend this book enough." - Michael Moore, author of Stupid White Men, Director of Bowling for Columbine and Roger and Me, and Producer of TV Nation.

Book Jacket Description:

In 1987, documentary filmmaker Geoffrey O'Connor read a four-line report about a gold rush taking place on Indian lands deep in the heart of Brazilian rain forest. Suddenly his work- and his life- took a sharp turn south. The more he researched the story, the more unbelievable it became: one billion dollars' worth of gold was leaving the Amazon each year. O'Connor set out to capture on video what he believed would be sadly predictable tale of victims- the Yanomami Indians- and aggressors - a virtual army of 45,000 gold miners. However, this "simple story" proved to be something far more ambiguous and complex. With Amazon Journal, his vivid, challenging account of his journeys into one of the most isolated regions on earth, O'Connor adds a new chapter to the rich and fascinating tradition of literature chronicling the "ongoing conquest of the Americas."

The real story of the Amazon was one that would take a decade to unravel. It would take O'Connor deep into a rain forest marked by 105-degree heat and infested with malaria- a place both beautiful and deadly. While the eyes of the world were focused-however briefly-on the media hype surrounding the "Save the Rain Forest" campaign, and his colleagues were exporting images of the "noble savage." O'Connor was driven to seek out the Yanomami in their own territory at no small risk to his health or safety. The more he came to know about the Amazon, its politics, and its people, the more O'Connor found himself turning the camera not only on indigenous societies but on our own as well. Instead of merely documenting the story, he became a part of it.

Peopled by real-life characters ranging from an eccentric mine owner toting a solid-gold pistol to a renegade priest who smuggled O'Connor into Yanomami territory against military orders, O'Connor's startling narrative becomes a journey into a contemporary heart of darkness, a compelling and compassionate look at a vanishing people, and a blistering account of the forces of destruction, both human and environmental, at work within the greatest forest on earth. In the tradition of Peter Matthiessen, Amazon Journal is a sometimes humorous, sometimes haunting, ultimately unforgettable portrait of the last real frontier.