The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story
The #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, named one of the best books of the year by The Boston Globe and National Geographic: acclaimed journalist Douglas Preston takes readers on a true adventure deep into the Honduran rainforest in this riveting narrative about the discovery of a lost civilization -- culminating in a stunning medical mystery.
Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location. Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization. Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease. Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure, and dramatic twists of fortune, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.
Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location. Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization. Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease. Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure, and dramatic twists of fortune, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.
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Community Reviews
Whoa. What a book. This book took me through every emotion available, it felt like. Also, do not read this book while sick. This is fuel for nightmares. But I also, in turns, felt like Indiana Jones, wanted so badly to be an archaeologist, nodded my head vigorously in agreement as a World History teacher (and made mental notes to follow up on his primary sources for my class), laughed at the author's dry quips, and yelped loudly (with colorful expletives).
The whole premise of this book is that a bunch of people use state-of-the-art technology to discover and uncover some archaeological ruins in the jungles of Honduras.
Sounds neat, right? Well, it was! And also all the other emotions, too.
When I say this book had everything, I do not exaggerate. It started off with a detailed description of all the dangers of the jungle they were about to enter. Man, I already had a fear of jungles, but this book was just the kicker for all that. I talked constantly while reading this book (my husband was so annoyed) and shared way too much. But I couldn't help sharing all the scary things that happened in the jungle. Seriously, I already was like, no trips to Central or South America for me, and by the end of this book I was seriously thinking about moving to Iceland. Because cold and less of all the things that will kill you in the jungle. I would rather fall off a cliff into some sharp rocks in below-freezing ocean water, dying hideously of blunt trauma and drowning than set foot in Mosquitia. The descriptions were picturesque, but then the descriptions of the dangers were proportionately terrifying. Or disproportionately, if you're me.
Then, Preston went back to the beginning of the search for "La Ciudad Blanca," a supposedly cursed city lost in the Honduran jungle. The lidar was really interesting. Lidar (or Light Detecting and Ranging) is a technology that allows you to fly over an area and bounce lasers off the ground below, allowing you to map the area pretty accurately and uncover things that can't be seen with the naked eye or up close. Think Bilbo in the Mirkwood Forest. He goes up a very tall tree and sees no end in sight. In reality, he's just in the bottom of a valley and it only looks like there's no end in sight. From the ground, these archaeological ruins don't look like anything. But lidar can reveal patterns of human activity in a way heretofore unable to be discerned. I'd shown my World History Advanced Placement kids (WHAP) a video of lidar mapping Angkor Wat and how it can show what else is there, invisible to the naked eye or lost because of perspective. Preston enforced this by mentioning often how they actual archaeological sites were basically invisible when they were standing right next to them, and if they didn't have GPS coordinates they would have walked on by. This was the invigorating part: the thrill of discovery, the adventure of a lifetime, the passion of nerds... I played the Indiana Jones soundtrack during this part (I also accidentally got stuck on one track for about twenty minutes... It was a 1 min. 2 sec. song... Played about 18 times... Not a shining moment for me, I'll admit). It was in turns fascinating and frightening and astounding. Definitely my favorite part.
That, however, was only halfway through the book. It was one of those books where you're sitting there thinking, okayyyyy, what's going to take up the second half? Turns out, the more frightening part of the book. You thought fer-de-lances were scary? Okay, yes, they are, but what was even more frightening was Preston's account and delving into leishmaniasis.
Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease that humans contract from sand flies. It presents itself, sometimes, as a bug bite that doesn't hurt but won't heal. Some strains will spread to the face and eat the face away. It was so prevalent in Central America in the pre-Columbian era that scientists can literally identify every stage of the disease in the skeletons found from this time period and facial disfiguration was a common torture device intended to mimic the effects of leishmaniasis. The author contracted it, as did about half the team. Every person had a different experience with the disease, and the author detailed all their treatments, how they fared, what the disease was all about, and what's being done (or not done) to treat the disease.
It was very disheartening. Leishmaniasis is the second most deadly parasitic disease after malaria, but because it mostly strikes in the Third World, finding a cure is not profitable. So no money is going to research because Big Pharma won't be able to make a quick buck. Plus, Trump and his ridiculously dumb cronies recently tried to cut the National Institute of Health's budget (and I'm pretty sure Congress also cut it more under Obama, as well). The NIH is really the only ones studying this in the U.S. and working on figuring it out. Plus, since climate change is continuing, this means the area where sand flies (the main carriers) can breed and live will continue to spread northward. A pandemic is coming, and I'd really really like to not die of this one. Okay, yes, dying of the flu would feel slightly humiliating, but I'd rather die of something mildly humiliating than have my face eaten away over the course of years. Yuck. You know what would be great? If we put money into scientific research and halting climate change. You know what we're not doing? Both of those things. Preston set up a very clear scenario in which a pandemic is coming, but it will come a lot faster and with a lot more terrifying diseases if we allow climate change to continue unabated. But it's all a Chinese hoax, right?
Also, I was sick while reading this. I was feverish most of the time, and it made it all the more terrifying. I had to watch cute videos on YouTube afterward to try and calm myself down enough to sleep. I repeat: DO NOT READ WHILE SICK. IT IS AN UNPLEASANT EXPERIENCE.
Lastly, as a history teacher, I really enjoyed him delving into the exchange of disease when the Old and New Worlds met. It encompassed all the information I already knew, but in a way that was more entertaining. I'm seriously considering scanning parts of that last chapter for use in my classroom to help my kids understand what an atrocity the Columbian Exchange really was. He did use Jared Diamond a little much for my taste, but hey that's okay. He also used primary sources I'd heard of (Bartolome de las Casas) and ones I hadn't that I'm totally adding to my curriculum.
As always, Douglas Preston is a master writer. He can do it all. (His brother Richard is nothing to sniff at either, whom he mentions in conjunction with the book The Hot Zone which I read in high school and was terrified by. This book was exponentially worse in a much shorter space. He did not, however, mention that Richard was his brother, which felt weird.) He also did a lot of qualifying, which was nice. He talked about how important it was to make sure indigenous peoples' rights were protected, how archaeology as a social science must continue to grow in sensitivity and inclusivity, how what they found was not really a "lost city" of a "monkey god" but how the media exaggerates and blows things up, how difficult it is to balance ethics with research, and a lot of other topics that I thought addressed critics well.
This was a great, great book. You should read it. NOW.
The whole premise of this book is that a bunch of people use state-of-the-art technology to discover and uncover some archaeological ruins in the jungles of Honduras.
Sounds neat, right? Well, it was! And also all the other emotions, too.
When I say this book had everything, I do not exaggerate. It started off with a detailed description of all the dangers of the jungle they were about to enter. Man, I already had a fear of jungles, but this book was just the kicker for all that. I talked constantly while reading this book (my husband was so annoyed) and shared way too much. But I couldn't help sharing all the scary things that happened in the jungle. Seriously, I already was like, no trips to Central or South America for me, and by the end of this book I was seriously thinking about moving to Iceland. Because cold and less of all the things that will kill you in the jungle. I would rather fall off a cliff into some sharp rocks in below-freezing ocean water, dying hideously of blunt trauma and drowning than set foot in Mosquitia. The descriptions were picturesque, but then the descriptions of the dangers were proportionately terrifying. Or disproportionately, if you're me.
Then, Preston went back to the beginning of the search for "La Ciudad Blanca," a supposedly cursed city lost in the Honduran jungle. The lidar was really interesting. Lidar (or Light Detecting and Ranging) is a technology that allows you to fly over an area and bounce lasers off the ground below, allowing you to map the area pretty accurately and uncover things that can't be seen with the naked eye or up close. Think Bilbo in the Mirkwood Forest. He goes up a very tall tree and sees no end in sight. In reality, he's just in the bottom of a valley and it only looks like there's no end in sight. From the ground, these archaeological ruins don't look like anything. But lidar can reveal patterns of human activity in a way heretofore unable to be discerned. I'd shown my World History Advanced Placement kids (WHAP) a video of lidar mapping Angkor Wat and how it can show what else is there, invisible to the naked eye or lost because of perspective. Preston enforced this by mentioning often how they actual archaeological sites were basically invisible when they were standing right next to them, and if they didn't have GPS coordinates they would have walked on by. This was the invigorating part: the thrill of discovery, the adventure of a lifetime, the passion of nerds... I played the Indiana Jones soundtrack during this part (I also accidentally got stuck on one track for about twenty minutes... It was a 1 min. 2 sec. song... Played about 18 times... Not a shining moment for me, I'll admit). It was in turns fascinating and frightening and astounding. Definitely my favorite part.
That, however, was only halfway through the book. It was one of those books where you're sitting there thinking, okayyyyy, what's going to take up the second half? Turns out, the more frightening part of the book. You thought fer-de-lances were scary? Okay, yes, they are, but what was even more frightening was Preston's account and delving into leishmaniasis.
Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease that humans contract from sand flies. It presents itself, sometimes, as a bug bite that doesn't hurt but won't heal. Some strains will spread to the face and eat the face away. It was so prevalent in Central America in the pre-Columbian era that scientists can literally identify every stage of the disease in the skeletons found from this time period and facial disfiguration was a common torture device intended to mimic the effects of leishmaniasis. The author contracted it, as did about half the team. Every person had a different experience with the disease, and the author detailed all their treatments, how they fared, what the disease was all about, and what's being done (or not done) to treat the disease.
It was very disheartening. Leishmaniasis is the second most deadly parasitic disease after malaria, but because it mostly strikes in the Third World, finding a cure is not profitable. So no money is going to research because Big Pharma won't be able to make a quick buck. Plus, Trump and his ridiculously dumb cronies recently tried to cut the National Institute of Health's budget (and I'm pretty sure Congress also cut it more under Obama, as well). The NIH is really the only ones studying this in the U.S. and working on figuring it out. Plus, since climate change is continuing, this means the area where sand flies (the main carriers) can breed and live will continue to spread northward. A pandemic is coming, and I'd really really like to not die of this one. Okay, yes, dying of the flu would feel slightly humiliating, but I'd rather die of something mildly humiliating than have my face eaten away over the course of years. Yuck. You know what would be great? If we put money into scientific research and halting climate change. You know what we're not doing? Both of those things. Preston set up a very clear scenario in which a pandemic is coming, but it will come a lot faster and with a lot more terrifying diseases if we allow climate change to continue unabated. But it's all a Chinese hoax, right?
Also, I was sick while reading this. I was feverish most of the time, and it made it all the more terrifying. I had to watch cute videos on YouTube afterward to try and calm myself down enough to sleep. I repeat: DO NOT READ WHILE SICK. IT IS AN UNPLEASANT EXPERIENCE.
Lastly, as a history teacher, I really enjoyed him delving into the exchange of disease when the Old and New Worlds met. It encompassed all the information I already knew, but in a way that was more entertaining. I'm seriously considering scanning parts of that last chapter for use in my classroom to help my kids understand what an atrocity the Columbian Exchange really was. He did use Jared Diamond a little much for my taste, but hey that's okay. He also used primary sources I'd heard of (Bartolome de las Casas) and ones I hadn't that I'm totally adding to my curriculum.
As always, Douglas Preston is a master writer. He can do it all. (His brother Richard is nothing to sniff at either, whom he mentions in conjunction with the book The Hot Zone which I read in high school and was terrified by. This book was exponentially worse in a much shorter space. He did not, however, mention that Richard was his brother, which felt weird.) He also did a lot of qualifying, which was nice. He talked about how important it was to make sure indigenous peoples' rights were protected, how archaeology as a social science must continue to grow in sensitivity and inclusivity, how what they found was not really a "lost city" of a "monkey god" but how the media exaggerates and blows things up, how difficult it is to balance ethics with research, and a lot of other topics that I thought addressed critics well.
This was a great, great book. You should read it. NOW.
Not usually a non-fiction reader. But this book was interesting without being sensational, and factual without being boring. Hard line to walk but this author managed very well.
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