This is an annotated guide to more than 1,600 non‐fiction books about Central and South American jungle. It is divided into five sections: ecology and conservation; flora and fauna; people of the forest; travel and exploration; and young adult and children’s reading. There is, as the author admits, some arbitrariness in the assignment of books to sections. There are 30 pages of index to terms and authors which makes it very easy to find books on a particular topic or by author, and as the books in each of the sections have a prefixing letter the main thrust of the book is obvious. The selection of books is very wide. The definition of forest runs from cloud forest to tropical shores and turtles, but the book does not touch the high Andes or the grassland areas. The oldest text that I could spot was a reprint of a seventeenth century translation of Jose de Acosta’s account of the natural history of the East and West Indies, first published in 1588. Many of the entries date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I found all of the (few) books on South American anthroplogy that I have read are included, and I have spotted a few I will get my community library to borrow for me.
The author is an enthusiast of the rain forest, and this comes over in the introduction which is well worth reading. As I skimmed about the pages and index I kept coming up with interesting facts, unexpected but never the less relevant references, observations such as that there are more books on the Yanamami, who are considered violent, than on the Tukanoans who practice linguist exogamy. In the end I decided that, rather than fill this review with examples, it would be easier just to say that the selection of books fascinated me and has rekindled my interest in anthropology, and leave those of you who buy the book to find your own gems and get reading.
Anyone and any organisation interested in South American rain forests will find this book of interest and value. The books in the sections other than anthropology and travel contain many of wider than South American interest. Textbooks are seldom covered by databases, and many of those that are included here predate Biosis,CABI and Sociology Abstracts. Little of what is here will be found on the Internet. There is still a place for reference books like this.
