Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon

This book, already nominated for a National Book Award, details the tragic encounter between an archaic Amazon people, the Yanomami, and what's depicted as a culturally toxic conglomeration of ruthless social scientists, rapacious financial interests, amoral governments and pop-culture journalists. Tierney (The Highest Altar) argues for an end to the arrogant exploitation of peoples outside of the classical Eurasian traditions. Copiously annotated and well documented, the work is the culmination of a decade-long study of what Tierney claims is false science; along the way, he exposes the dark side of some famous social-biologists. These self-promotors, he argues, cooked statistics and misrepresented behavior among the people they studied in order to support their presuppositions. Tierney explains how the Yanomami's desire for steel implements in their Paleolithic world of hunting, gathering, fishing and rudimentary farming led to exploitation by the observers, who wielded the promise of tools and modern gadgetry to manipulate the native population. Bribing the Indians enabled some scientists, with preconceived genetic theories of violence and dominance, to induce the Yanomami to act in ways antithetical to their own ancient customs. In the end, these flawed studies encouraged and justified mistreatment of this tribal people by Brazilian, Venezuelan and U.S. government agencies and the mining industry. Tierney's indictment exposes the worst depredations of modern cultural imperialism. Photographs and charts, not seen by PW. (Nov. 30)