Naturalists in Paradise: Wallace, Bates and Spruce in the Amazon - Hardcover

Formerly the Director of the Royal Geographical Society in London, John Hemming has traveled in and written extensively about the Amazon region. His previous books include Tree of Rivers.

“I can’t imagine a better biographer for these three men than John Hemming. . . . [His] most evocative accounts concern the many indigenous peoples that the three explorers met. There is a great tenderness in his descriptions, mixed with an immense respect and appreciation for their customs and traditions. . . . Naturalists in Paradise is a story of adventure and tenacious endurance, told by an author who underpins the research with his personal knowledge of the Amazon.”
- The Wall Street Journal

“The author of this most intriguing ‘triography’ of Bates, Spruce and Wallace is the person best qualified to write it . . . Hemming’s crowning achievement is the full integration of the stories of Bates, Spruce and Wallace. Wallace has been the focus of numerous books, while few narratives have concentrated on the great scientific contributions by Bates or Spruce. Hemming makes a very clear and compelling case that the other two’s friendship, partnership, conversations, correspondence and research amply influenced Wallace’s thinking and his great theory.”
- Washington Post

“In Naturalists in Paradise, John Hemming uses the stories of these three iconic Victorian explorers to show how the experience of being in the field is intensively individual and as idiosyncratic as the people themselves. There is no one better to explore their journeys than Hemming, who not only is a great scholar of the Amazon and its people but also has, himself, trodden in the footsteps of these men, a fact that allows him to empathize charmingly with their individual tales. Hemming portrays the personalities of each of these men brilliantly. . . . The most striking theme in Hemming’s book is the powerful description of the importance of collaboration in field work and in science in general. . . .  Today’s scientists working with biodiversity and ecosystem services could take a cue from these Victorian naturalists who explored with both their eyes and minds open.”
- Science