Amazonia remains a part of the world that demands further study, not only because it represents a unique geographical and historical setting, but also because it has too often been neglected by scholars. This book clearly shows the value of bringing a historical perspective to quilombos, maroons, and Black Amazonians—communities that are too often regarded as outside of history, or as people without history.

A surprisingly large population of Africans were sold as slaves in the Amazon in the nineteenth century, and their descendants continue to define themselves and the Brazilian Amazon in the twenty-first. The documentation and elaboration of this history, in relation to Brazil and to local histories across the Amazon, is important not simply because Black Amazonians were not previously considered. Rather, the book makes a stronger argument for a “parallel economy,” a world created in the Amazon through the relationships between Blacks, Indians, and others, outside of the understanding of slave-owning society.

The book focuses much of the reader's attention on the economic history of the lower Amazon, from the mid nineteenth century through the end of World War II. There is a risk of making a terrible subject seem somewhat clinical by focusing primarily on economic and statistical information. However, the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade are likely familiar to most readers, and the more documentary approach to the material is useful. The Amazon has long been a zoological garden of exotic theories and ideas about its human inhabitants, and even about humanity in general. It is very powerful to replace the imaginary Amazon of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with a rigorous approach. One of many effective details is the connection between oral tradition and written history created by the concept of the “Big Snake.”

The text makes a strong point of how identity is connected to the landscape, or was (and is) related to the environment in what might be called a chthonic way. The connections between maroons and the river, forest, plants, and animals were essential to Amazonian history, not simply a backdrop. Establishing this point enables further consideration of these relationships, as it becomes clearer that what was thought of as the timeless and pristine Amazonian environment is in fact the product of many complex historical ecologies. The location of stands of Brazil nut trees, which serves as an introductory example here, would be fascinating to consider in terms of the relationship between long-lived trees and pre-Columbian peoples.

The book is well written, with an engaging and steady style. As a reader unfamiliar with much of this literature, I did not feel excluded or intimidated, and I was helped to bring my own understandings of related issues in the Upper Amazon into my reading. The maps and photographs are well chosen, and they add to the effectiveness of the text. This book would be an excellent addition to a syllabus for Amazonian history, and would be useful for upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and anyone who is interested in a case study for Amazonian history, sociology, anthropology, and rural economy. The author should be applauded for making this story accessible to a larger audience.

A very energizing part of the book comes at the end: the connections between Afro-Brazilian history in the Amazon, and the political efforts associated with land rights disputes since 1988. The narrative builds crucial background for the Brazilian constitution and the cultural and legal identities that went into and came out of that moment. If “nature,” in a memorable phrase, was “weaponized” in the nineteenth century by the ancestors of contemporary Amazonians, then perhaps this history can inform these communities as the twenty-first century takes shape against a background of climate change and global corporations, politics, and resistance. For readers from the social sciences interested in history, this book opens an entrance into an adjacent room in the library. Such passageways between our increasingly separated disciplines are both rare and valuable.