The river sea : from the Andes to the Atlantic -- The Incas : the rise and fall of the empire of the sun -- The search for El Dorado : gold, spices, and blood -- Conquistadors for Christ : the holy fathers and the indigenous peoples -- The great powers in the Amazon basin : the struggle for control -- Nature's grand laboratory : European science discovers the Amazon -- The Peruvian Evangeline : the journey of María Isabel de Jesus Gramesón y Godin -- "I must find out about the unity of nature" : the explorations of Alexander von Humboldt -- Three eminent Victorians in the "garden of the world" : Wallace, Bates, and Spruce explore the Amazon -- The great rubber boom : an Amazonian gilded age -- Exploitation, despoliation, or conservation : the river sea in the new millennium.
