The Book Prize Index

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

Patrick Tierney

What "Guns, Germs, and Steel" did for colonial history, this book will do for modern anthropology, telling the explosive story of how ruthless journalists, self-serving anthropologists, and obsessed scientists placed the Yanomami, one of the Amazon basin's oldest tribes, on the cusp of extinction. A "New York Times" Notable Book. of photos.

Journalism & ReportageJournalism & Reportage · medium confidenceJournalism & Reportage81 signalsLlm Classifier: Journalism & Reportage -> Journalism & ReportageGoogle Books: Business & Economics -> Business & EconomicsTopic Classifier: Scientific Biography -> BiographyScientific BiographyAfrica & the African DiasporaClimate, Weather & Disaster

Award History

0 wins · 2 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current InterestMajor2000FinalistSecondary source
National Book Award for NonfictionMajor2000FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (2)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • El Dorado60%
    • the Amazon55%

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    The book argues that ruthless journalists, self-serving anthropologists, and obsessed scientists pushed the Yanomami toward extinction by placing them on the cusp of extinction.

    Model confidence 72%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    35 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 62%.