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"At once an absorbing, intrepid narrative and an inspiring, powerful story of hope and redemption, it is a hymn to a mythic place: the Magdalena, the artery of Colombia. The great river has driven the nation's life, its stories, its history and trade, its shamanistic traditions, and is at the heart of its literature and music. Yet, as the country suffered through decades of violence in the twentieth century, the great river suffered too, becoming the graveyard of the nation, an environmental catastrophe and a human dumping ground for all sides of the conflict. In 2015, Wade returned to the secretive place he had explored as a young ethnobotanist, to lead the first of several expeditions along the giant river. We discover with him the violent, sorrow-filled past and a new present as Colombia embarks on what had previously seemed to the world an impossible change: a life-affirming healing, spiritually and politically, alongside its Indigenous peoples; heartwarming portraits of unforgettable people; the beauty of forests, the power of the river. This is the magnificent, definitive story of Colombia itself, from the conquistadors to the corruption of the twentieth century to the new years of long hoped-for peace and stability."--