{"id":17228,"date":"2012-04-18T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=17228"},"modified":"2014-05-16T00:21:06","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T04:21:06","slug":"river-of-doubt-theodore-roosevelts-darkest-journey-by-candice-millard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/river-of-doubt-theodore-roosevelts-darkest-journey-by-candice-millard\/","title":{"rendered":"River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"River<\/a>Being always a dozen or so titles behind, a confluence of certain events seem to need to happen for some posts to finally get from my brain to the … uh … the virtual world.<\/p>\n

First things first:\u00a0River of Doubt<\/em> is absolutely riveting! But for me to tell you that, I had to be reminded to do so by sitting through two-plus soporific hours in a chilly theater last night watching (the usually enchanting) John Lithgow stumble and scream through a couple of decades of journalist Joseph Alsop’s life\u00a0\u2013 Alsop’s grandmother, Corinne Roosevelt, was Teddy Roosevelt’s younger sister and appears sporadically throughout\u00a0River<\/em>. Then I opened an email this morning from a Smithsonian APA Program<\/a>\u00a0colleague about only reading fiction, so just to be contrary, here I am …<\/p>\n

Teddy Roosevelt’s third bid for the presidency in 1912 was a spectacular failure. Having survived a sickly childhood by taking on impossible adventures out of sheer will, Roosevelt refused to quietly retire, and instead headed to South America to undertake what would be the greatest physical challenge of his life: to chart the unknown waters of what was then known as the\u00a0Rio da D\u00favida<\/em>, or the River of Doubt, which winds through Brazil and eventually flows into the Amazon.<\/p>\n

Former\u00a0National Geographic<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>magazine editor\/writer\u00a0Candice Millard<\/a>\u00a0tracks the grueling journey through journals, letters, and articles not only of the former President, but also of his tenacious co-participants, including Roosevelt’s son Kermit, Brazil’s most famous explorer and expedition co-commander Colonel\u00a0C\u00e2ndido Rondon<\/a>, and legendary American naturalist and explorer George Cherrie<\/a>. Before the expedition actually reaches the River (possible spoiler alert here), Roosevelt will have had to separate from the incompetent outfitter Anthony Fiala and the arrogant and racist Father John Augustine Zahm.<\/p>\n

As much as the expedition’s human participants are the book’s heroes (and villains both), Millard’s most excellent adventures are enhanced by ever-so-graphic descriptions (or nightmares, if you will) of the flora and fauna throughout the uncharted territory (no spoilers here, ahem … except to mention that piranhas ain’t got nothin’ on candiru<\/a>!).<\/p>\n

With Paul Michael narrating, I found myself running the river trails with more than the usual alertness \u2013 hey, I’m in DC, I never know what sort of slimy surprise I might run into!\u00a0Millard’s expert storytelling proves absolutely addictive \u2013 surely, the late President is shouting ‘bully!!’ for her debut effort from wherever his latest adventure might be.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2005<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being always a dozen or so titles behind, a confluence of certain events seem to need to happen for some posts to finally get from my brain to the … uh … the virtual world. First things first:\u00a0River of Doubt is absolutely riveting! But for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,60,20,201],"tags":[32,6608,1399,59,189,24,1400,28,29,1401],"class_list":["post-17228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-nonethnic-specific","category-nonfiction","category-south-american","tag-adventure","tag-bookdragon","tag-candice-millard","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-father-son-relationship","tag-historical","tag-paul-michael","tag-politics","tag-race-racism","tag-river-of-doubt"],"yoast_head":"\nRiver of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/river-of-doubt-theodore-roosevelts-darkest-journey-by-candice-millard\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Being always a dozen or so titles behind, a confluence of certain events seem to need to happen for some posts to finally get from my brain to the … uh … the virtual world. First things first:\u00a0River of Doubt is absolutely riveting! But for...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/river-of-doubt-theodore-roosevelts-darkest-journey-by-candice-millard\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-18T14:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-05-16T04:21:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2012\/04\/River-of-Doubt.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"948\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1436\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/river-of-doubt-theodore-roosevelts-darkest-journey-by-candice-millard\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard - BookDragon","og_description":"Being always a dozen or so titles behind, a confluence of certain events seem to need to happen for some posts to finally get from my brain to the … uh … the virtual world. First things first:\u00a0River of Doubt is absolutely riveting! But for...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/river-of-doubt-theodore-roosevelts-darkest-journey-by-candice-millard\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2012-04-18T14:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-05-16T04:21:06+00:00","og_image":[{"width":948,"height":1436,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2012\/04\/River-of-Doubt.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/river-of-doubt-theodore-roosevelts-darkest-journey-by-candice-millard\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/river-of-doubt-theodore-roosevelts-darkest-journey-by-candice-millard\/","name":"River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-04-18T14:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2014-05-16T04:21:06+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/river-of-doubt-theodore-roosevelts-darkest-journey-by-candice-millard\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/river-of-doubt-theodore-roosevelts-darkest-journey-by-candice-millard\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/river-of-doubt-theodore-roosevelts-darkest-journey-by-candice-millard\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17228"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17228"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27417,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17228\/revisions\/27417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}