Candice Millard · 2005 · river

Candice Millard's account of Theodore Roosevelt's Amazon expedition of 1913-14. Beaten in the presidential election, fifty-five and unfit, he accepted an invitation to descend an entirely unmapped river in the Brazilian interior. The expedition lost its boats, its supplies and three men, and Roosevelt came out of it with an infection that eventually killed him.

1. 1
   Rio de Janeiro

   Roosevelt arrives in Brazil expecting a lecture tour and a gentle river trip, and is instead offered the descent of the Rio da Duvida - a river whose course, length and destination were unknown - and accepts at once.

2. 2
   Asuncion

   The party works up the Paraguay river by steamer, badly equipped by a co-organiser who has bought supplies for a picnic rather than an expedition - a mistake that will cost lives once the boats are on the Duvida.

3. 3
   Tapirapoa

   From the last outpost the expedition crosses the Brazilian highlands by mule for weeks simply to reach the river's headwaters - and arrives already short of food, with pack animals dying and half the stores abandoned.

4. 4
   The River of Doubt

   The river proves nine hundred kilometres of rapids and canyon, watched throughout by Cinta Larga who chose not to kill them - and the dugouts smash, one man drowns, another is murdered, and Roosevelt asks to be left behind.

5. 5
   Manaus

   They come out onto the Madeira and down to Manaus two months later, having mapped a major tributary that no atlas had recorded - and Roosevelt, fifty pounds lighter, never fully recovered and was dead within five years.