DARKNESS IN EL DORADO

'Darkness in El Dorado' is an explosive account of how ruthless journalists, self-serving anthropologists, and obsessed scientists placed one of the Amazon basin's oldest tribes on the cusp of extinction. First coming to prominence in the 1960s, the 'savage' Yanomami Indians were the subject of anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon's multi-million-copy bestseller Yanomami: The Fierce People and many award-winning films. These exemplars of human ferocity, however, did not arrive at such dispositions naturally. Patrick Tierney describes how the Yanomami's internecine warfare was triggered by repeated visits of leading anthropologists from around the world as well as by the Atomic Energy Commission, which wished to use Yanomami blood in radiation studies in the mid-1960s. This is an epic, compelling work, sure to shake the very foundations of American anthropology.