Savages

Joe Kane, author of Running the Amazon, returns to the river to search for the Huaorani, a nation of 1,300 nomadic Indians so isolated they speak a language unrelated to any other on earth, so fierce that for millennia they have defended a territory the size of Massachusetts against all comers. But theirs is a territory rich in oil, and now, suddenly, the Huaorani find themselves besieged by a wave of aggressors the likes of which they have never seen: hell-bent oil companies, dogged missionaries, unscrupulous indigenous bureaucrats, and starry-eyed environmentalists - all claiming to represent the Huaorani's best interests. Kane's story of how the Huaorani attempt to vault from Stone Age to Petroleum Age on their own terms, to outwit and outfight the forces of change, exposes one of the best-hidden consequences of our relentless drive to "develop" the world. And just as important, it brings us face-to-face with the spirit of the jaguar - the spirit that inspires the Huaorani to call themselves "the bravest people in the Amazon".