Description:
Where the Gods Reign is a complete anthropological overview of the Amazon rainforest ecosystem, containing chapters on rivers, ethnic groups, cultural activities, rubber and coca plants, drugs and medicines.
Brief description:
Dr. Richard Evans Schultes, regarded as the father of contemporary ethnobotany, carried out extensive field studies, particularly in the Amazon. He received numerous awards including the Cross of Boyaca, Columbia's highest honor, and the annual GOld Medal of the World Wildlife Fund. In 1987 he received the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and in 1992 he was awarded the Linnean Gold Medal, the highest award a botanist can receive. Dr. Schultes was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Linnean Society of London, three Latin American Academies, the Academy of India, and the Third World Academy of Sciences.
Review Quotes:
"Having slipped away from his own world, Schultes experienced through multiple lens-his eyes, the delicately honed glass of his camera, the visionary realm of the sacred plant medicines-an exotic land on the cusp of change. He was the right person in the right place at the right time to accomplish greatness and leave in his wake an astonishing photographic legacy."- Wade Davis, Author of Magdalena: River of Dreams and One River, and Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society
"Were it not for Schultes there would be no modern discipline of ethnopharmacology. While he published prodigiously and produced many excellent scientific studies, Where the Gods Reign was written with a general audience in mind. Well enhanced with many beautiful photographs, most of which were taken by Schultes himself, this work is an enthralling and fascinating gateway to the mystery and wonder of sacred psychoactive plants of the Amazon, and to its people for whom they were a living mystery." - Dennis McKenna Author of The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss: My Life with Terence McKenna
"We are in the midst of a psychedelic renaissance driven by science and economic opportunities. This beautiful reprint of Richard Schultes' work is a timely reminder of the cultural and ethnobotanical roots of this conversation, and the importance of honoring Indigenous plant knowledge. Readers are treated to spectacular images and vivid descriptions that reveal Schultes' passion for understanding the enchantment of sacred plants in the Amazon." - Erika Dyck, PhD Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, University of Saskatchewan
"The photos and scientific legacy portrayed in Where the Gods Reign inspired the cinematography and script of the Oscar-winning film Embrace of the Serpent, shot in the Colombian Amazon. However, contrary to the nostalgic epigraph of the film, these cultures do in fact persist and resist against all odds nearly eight decades later. Schultes's photographs, botanical collections and voluminous scientific publications are a testament to the enduring cultural and botanical heritage of indigenous peoples of the Colombian Amazon." - Glenn H. Shepard Jr., Ethnobotanist & Ethnology Curator, Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi