Alex Cuadros, "When We Sold God's Eye: Diamonds, Murder, and a Clash of Worlds in the Amazon" (Grand Central Publishing, 2024)
Growing up in a remote corner of the worldās largest rainforest, Pio, Maria, and Oita learned to hunt wild pigs and tapirs, and gathered Brazil nuts and aƧaĆ berries from centuries-old trees. The first highway pierced through in 1960. Ranchers, loggers, and prospectors invaded, and the kids lost their families to terrible new weapons and diseases. Pushed by the government to assimilate, they struggled to figure out their new, capitalist reality, discovering its wondersācars, refrigerators, TV sets, phonesāas well as a way to acquire them: by selling the natural riches of their own forest home. They had to partner with the white men whoād hunted them, but their wealth grew legendary, the envy of the nationāuntil decades of suppressed trauma erupted into a massacre, bloody retribution that made headlines across the globe.
Based on six years of immersive reporting and research,Ā When We Sold God's Eye: Diamonds, Murder, and a Clash of Worlds in the AmazonĀ (Grand Central Publishing, 2024) tells a unique kind of adventure story, one that begins with a river journey by Theodore Roosevelt and ends with smugglers from New York Cityās Diamond District. Itās a story of survival against all odds; of the temptations of wealth and the dream of prosperity; of an ecosystem threatened by our hunger for resources; of genocide and revenge. Itās a tragedy as old as the first European encounters with Indigenous people, playing out in the present day. But most of all, itās the moving saga of a few audacious individualsāPio, Maria, Oita, and their friendsāand their attempts to adapt and even thrive in the most unlikely circumstances.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism