Latin Americanists frequently select research projects that have policy implications and historians often remind readers that, “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” Robin L. Anderson has done both in this careful study of various colonization schemes in Pará in the Lower Amazon Valley. The author demonstrates convincingly that the relative success of colonization hinges on the efforts of the settlers themselves and not on the grandiose and distant schemes of governors, legislators, and planners. Moreover, Anderson’s careful review of colonization efforts during the Directorate (1758–98) and the myriad projects from 1850 to 1911 illustrate why past and present top-down megaprojects to exploit the people and environment of Lower Amazonia have failed.
Anderson’s findings resonate with earlier works on colonization and Amazonia penned by Stephen Bunker, Marianne Schmink, David Cleary, Emilio Moran, Susanna Hecht, Nigel Smith, and others. Chronologically, this book is different from John Hemming’s...
