River Without a Cause: An Expedition through the Past, Present and Future of Theodore Roosevelt's River of Doubt

by Sam Moses

Overview

A riveting journey down Theodore Roosevelt's "river of doubt" with a diverse crew of adventurers, scientists, and Indigenous leaders who shine light on the past, present, and future of a natural wonder.

Sam Moses took part in the adventure of a lifetime when he, along with seventeen men and two women, embarked on the Rio Roosevelt Expedition. They would follow the former president's wake down five-hundred miles of extreme whitewater into the dark heart of the Amazon. The party was guided by two chiefs from the Cinta Larga tribe—the same tribe that stalked Roosevelt’s expedition in 1914—who, between rapids, tell the story of the tribe’s own Trail of Tears.

After the wildest whitewater is past, Moses travels with the chiefs to their village to witness the massive illegal mahogany logging from their forest, the Roosevelt Indigenous Territory. River Without a Cause puts us in the raft during those heart pounding rapid descents, as we experience the drama, dynamics and disputes between the Bull Moose and his co-leader, Brazil’s most famous explorer, the rigid Colonel Candido Rondon. As the Amazon stands on the precipice of hope with the election of a new Brazilian president, River Without a Cause is a moving and galvanizing tale of adventure that is a fitting tribute to this world wonder.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639365579
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	03/05/2024
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	413,703
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Sam Moses is the author of the acclaimed race-driving memoir, Fast Guys, Rich Guys and Idiots, as well as At All Costs: How a Crippled Ship and Two Merchant Mariners Turned the Tide of World War II, a gripping account of a naval battle in the Straits of Gibraltar, and a heartfelt parenting memoir, It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This. A former senior writer for Sports Illustrated, he began writing as a U.S. Navy Seaman on a cruiser engaged in shore bombardment of Vietnam, long letters home. He lives in an eco village on the Indonesian island of Lombok.

Editorial Reviews

A retracing of the Roosevelt-Rondon journey, led by the American newspaper publisher Charlie Haskell and his wife, Elizabeth McKnight, this 19-member group included Tweed Roosevelt, TR’s great-grandson, as well as Mr. Moses. Provides an instructive glimpse of the Amazon today as agricultural, logging and mining interests continue to push into the rainforest and jeopardize the lives of its inhabitants. Whereas deforestation in Brazil surged under the recent administration of Jair Bolsonaro, it has slowed since the 2022 re-election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Mr. Moses ends his book with an image of Rondon’s spirit rising from the grave and cheering."

The Wall Street Journal

"A first-class retelling of the story of Operation Pedestal. Any proper account of Operation Pedestal and its salvation of Malta will read like a novel by the late Alistair MacLean, but Moses here has marshaled the research and exercised the writing skills to produce a solid addition to WWII naval literature by anyone's lights."

Booklist

"A first-class retelling of the story of Operation Pedestal. Any proper account of Operation Pedestal and its salvation of Malta will read like a novel by the late Alistair MacLean, but Moses here has marshaled the research and exercised the writing skills to produce a solid addition to WWII naval literature by anyone's lights."

Booklist

2023-12-16
An expedition follows in the footsteps of a century-old Amazon River adventure taken by naturalist and former president Theodore Roosevelt.

Former Sports Illustrated senior writer Moses recounts an expedition organized by a world traveler in constant danger of “looking like a rich guy on vacation” and including a descendant of Roosevelt and a handful of fellow travelers. The goal was to follow the president’s path down an Amazonian tributary called the River of Doubt. The author notes numerous good reasons for the name: Stretches remained poorly known, and there was plenty of doubt whether the region would survive the onslaught of diamond hunters, farmers, and others venturing into land inhabited by Indigenous peoples inclined to defend it. The rich guy, Charlie Haskell, was by Moses’ account a master of conjuring up all manner of gear, but his leadership skills were lacking, and he had a dysfunctional relationship with the truth that provides an odd anticlimax to the book. One oddity, which takes some time to suss out, is that the follow-up expedition took place more than 30 years ago; one wonders about the delay, and Moses scrambles at the end to assemble a where-are-they-now epilogue and its rather dispiriting conclusion that “nature is losing the war between environment and development.” There are fine moments of high adventure amid character studies that don’t always reflect well on the characters in question. Satisfyingly, the expedition succeeded in finding spots visited by President Roosevelt and his associate and guide, the brilliant Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. Still, Larry Rohter’s recent book Into the Amazon depicts the more vigorous life of Rondon, and Moses’ narrative lacks the vivid immediacy of Redmond O’Hanlon’s admittedly goofy In Trouble Again, another Amazonian adventure.

Sometimes a slog, but of some interest to armchair adventurers and history buffs.

Kirkus Reviews