GreenTracks
in association with Amazon.com..........offers the following books about the Amazon region, rainforests, and flora and fauna.

Click on the links to order from Amazon.com

All the books below are in print and readily available.
Besides these, there are plenty of good books that are out of print. You might find such at used book stores.

Bill and George on the GreenTracks staff love to talk about books!
Call for other recommendations or to share your own picks.

Neotropical Rainforest Mammals : A Field Guide
by Louise H. Emmons, Francois Feer (Illustrator)

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Paperback - 392 pages 2nd edition (August 1997)
University of Chicago Press; ISBN: 0226207218 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.69 x 9.08 x 6.04

Neotropical Rainforest Mammals, the first color-illustrated field guide to these highly diverse and elusive creatures, has enjoyed tremendous success since its initial publication in 1990. In this completely revised and updated second edition a total of 315 species and genera are covered in individual accounts (includes 24 accounts new to this edition); all species accounts retained from the first edition have been updated; all 195 maps present current information on the distribution and geographic range of each species; and twenty-nine beautiful color plates illustrate more than 220 species (including significant color variants between males and females or adults and young).

A Neotropical Companion : An Introduction to the Animals, Plants, and Ecosystems of the New World Tropics
by John C. Kricher, Mark Plotkin

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Hardcover - 536 pages 2nd Rev edition (October 1997)
Princeton Univ Pr; ISBN: 0691044333 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.36 x 9.33 x 6.39

A second revised edition of John Kricher's well-received 1989 text, A Neotropical Companion distills whole libraries of information on the Americas' tropics. Kricher explores the workings of a rainforest with admirable clarity, discussing matters such as regeneration pathways and ecological succession. He also takes a sidelong glance at current issues in evolutionary theory, using his deep knowledge of the tropics to add to the literature on speciation and various hypotheses surrounding it. Ethnobotanists in particular will want to have a look at Kricher's catalog of tropical medicinal plants, in which lie the promise of cures and reliefs for a host of modern illnesses.

"An intense and lively field guide ... compact and richly substantive." Scientific American

"The book is exactly what it says it is, a companion to take with you on your travels in the New World tropics.... The author has written ... with just the right amount of informality and humor." Book Description A Neotropical Companion is an extraordinarily readable introduction to the American tropics, the lands of Central and South America, their remarkable rainforests and other ecosystems, and the creatures that live there. It is the most comprehensive one-volume guide to the Neotropics available today. Widely praised in its first edition, it remains a book of unparalleled value to tourists, students, and scientists alike. This second edition has been substantially revised and expanded to incorporate the abundance of new scientific information that has been produced since it was first published in 1989. Major additions have been made to every chapter, and new chapters have been added on Neotropical ecosystems, human ecology, and the effects of deforestation. Biodiversity and its preservation are discussed throughout the book, and Neotropical evolution is described in detail. This new edition offers all new drawings and photographs, many of them in color. As enthusiastic readers of the first edition will attest, this is a charming book. Wearing his learning lightly and writing with ease and humor, John Kricher presents the complexities of tropical ecology as accessible and nonintimidating. Kricher is so thoroughly knowledgeable and the book is so complete in its coverage that general readers and ecotourists will not need any other book to help them identify and understand the plants and animals, from birds to bugs, that they will encounter in their travels to the New World tropics. At the same time, it will fascinate armchair travelers and students who may get no closer to the Neotropics than this engagingly written book. Synopsis Widely praised, A Neotropical Companion remains a book of unparalleled value to tourists, students, and scientists alike. It is an extraordinarily readable introduction to the American tropics, the lands of Central and South America, their rainforests and other ecosystems, and the creatures that live there. 177 color illustrations. Journal of Natural History

An Introduction to Tropical Rain Forests
by Timothy Whitmore

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Hardcover - Paperback, 296 pages, 2nd Rev Ed. (June 1998)
Oxford University Press, USA  ISBN: 0198501471  Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches

This new edition of Whitmore's classic introduction to tropical rain forests has been comprehensively revised and updated, reflecting the changes which have taken place since it was first published in 1990. The sections on human impact have been extended to include a new global assessment of deforestation as well as details of new research on biodiversity and conservation. Discussion of the future of the rain forests and priorities for action is incorporated. The book remains unique in linking rain forest biology and ecology with silviculture, and with concerns over sustainable resource utilization and the future of the tropical rain forests. It includes sections on the diverse animal and plant life forms which are found in the rain forest, and the interconnections between them. Nutrient cycles and forest dynamics are fully explained, with new data on ecophysiology and forest microclimates. The geologic and climatic history of rain forests, and the wide-spread canopy disturbances now understood to have occurred in the past, are explored. Accessibly written, and illustrated throughout with line-drawings and photographs, this is a must for biology and geography students, and anyone else who seeks to know more about the nature and importance of the world's tropical rain forests.

The High Frontier : Exploring the Tropical Rainforest Canopy
by Mark W. Moffett,

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Hardcover - 192 pages (March 1994)
Harvard Univ Pr; ISBN: 0674390385 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.79 x 11.33 x 8.83

Combining his skills as zoologist, writer, and photographer, Moffett recounts his high- and far-flung experiences studying life at the roof of the rainforest. He conveys his passion for science, exploration, and his subject while surveying advances in the field for the general reader. Beautiful photos accompany lucid narrative, the whole elegantly produced.

Amazon : From the Floodplains to the Clouds
by Alex Webb

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Hardcover - 144 pages (December 8, 1997)
Monacelli Pr; ISBN: 1885254776 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.80 x 10.88 x 12.25

Webb's best images capture the fluidity not only of the river but of the life along its banks. The New York Times Book Review, Lance Gould

Amazon Dream
by Robert Allen

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Paperback - 181 pages (January 1993)
City Lights Books; ISBN: 0872862704 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.58 x 8.02 x 5.53

If there's an opposite to swashbuckling, Roberta Allen's exploration of Peru's Amazon is it. Sensitive and in no hurry, she learns the ways of the jungle, the river, and the people, despite her occasional fear and discomfort as an unmarried American woman of 41 traveling on her own through a foreign culture, language, and land. She tells a beautiful, perceptive, and introspective tale that allows the spirit of the Amazon to emerge.

Arts of the Amazon
by Barbara Braun (Editor), Peter G. Roe (Editor)

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Paperback - 128 pages (June 1995)
Thames & Hudson; ISBN: 0500278245 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.38 x 10.68 x 8.52

At Play in the Fields of the Lord
by Peter Matthiessen

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Paperback - 373 pages Reprint edition (December 1991)
Vintage Books; ISBN: 0679737413 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.01 x 8.12 x 5.18

Set in a malarial outpost of the South American jungle, Matthiessen's electrifying moral thriller follows the clash between two misplaced gringos: Martin Quarrier, who has come to convert the local Indians to Christianity, and Lewis Moon, a half-Indian mercenary who has been hired to kill them. "Extraordinary . . . beautifully written." New York Times. Now the basis for a major motion picture starring John Lithgow, Tom Berenger, and Daryl Hannah.

One River : Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest
by Wade Davis

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Paperback - 544 pages Reprint edition (August 1997)
Touchstone Books; ISBN: 0684834960 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.35 x 9.23 x 6.13

Nature and Ecology Editor's Recommended Book Best known for The Serpent and the Rainbow, Wade Davis is an ethnobotanist interested in the native uses of plants, especially psychotropics. He finds many such plants in the travels he recounts in One River, especially coca and curare. (The first, famously, is a curse in the First World but is a necessity in the Andes, where it promotes the digestion of many kinds of food plants.) Framing Davis's narrative is an account of the dangerous World War II-era Amazonian expeditions undertaken by his mentor, Harvard biologist Richard Evans Schultes. Davis describes a few hair-raising encounters of his own, making this a fine book of scientific adventure.

From Booklist , August 19, 1996    Davis, a compelling writer and intrepid ethnobotanist best known for The Serpent and the Rainbow (1987), proves himself a master of synthesis in this engrossing history of plant exploration in the Amazon. He alternates between accounts of his amazing adventures in the field and rich descriptions of remote Indian tribes and their plant-based cosmologies, tales of conquering Spaniards and missionaries, and dynamic portraits of his mentors: the pioneering genius Richard Evans Schultes, the "world's leading authority on hallucinogenic plants," and Timothy Plowman, another inspired plant expert and fearless traveler. Davis pays particular attention to Schultes' groundbreaking field research into the uses of such sacred plants as peyote, coca, yage, and the San Isidro mushroom, as well as his seminal work with rubber plants and arrow and dart poisons. But as he works back and forth in time, a terrible paradox arises: just as outsiders such as Schultes and Plowman began to recognize the tremendous sophistication of Indian knowledge about the medicinal and spiritual properties of plants, the Amazon jungle came under assault. Davis, acute and articulate, both marvels at the subtleties of nature and the inventiveness of human beings and bemoans the tragedy of cultural conquest and rampant industrialization. Donna Seaman

The Healing Forest : Medicinal And Toxic Plants of the Northwest Amazonia (Historical, Ethno- & Economic Botany Series, Vol 2)
by Richard Evans Schultes, Robert F. Raffauf

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Hardcover (July 1990)
Timber Press; ISBN: 0931146143 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.65 x 10.64 x 7.74

The destruction of the Amazon forests continues, and with them an unknown number of plant species and the traditional knowledge of their medicinal uses. Schultes (biology, Harvard U.) and Raffauf (pharmacognosy and medicinal chemistry, Northeastern U.) combine nearly half a century of field research in this least studied part of the Amazonian drainage area to document and describe 1,479 species and variants, representing 596 genera in 145 plant families. Of these, half have had little or no prior investigation of their chemical and pharmacological properties. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

A Field Guide to Medicinal and Useful Plants of the Upper Amazon
by James L. Castner, Stephen L. Timme, James A. Duke

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Paperback - 160 pages 1 edition (August 1998)
Feline Pr; ISBN: 0962515078

This is the most helpful guide for me, a frequent visitor. Clear photographs, interesting descriptions, fascinating snippets of rainforest lore and well-researched information on local uses of each plant make for a good read for anyone who is interested in plants and rainforest.

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