the lost city of z
by sam on 10/6/2010
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
a great tale of man’s unending need to keep looking for things, from Colonel Fawcett’s need to find Z, to everyone else’s need to find Fawcett once he disappears.
Fawcett was one of the greatest explorers of his age, charting vast swathes of the Amazon, an area so inhospitable to outsiders that few survived the experience. Fawcett became convinced that there had been some great society, which he dubbed “Z”, and which others have at times referred to as El Dorado, and set out on a final adventure to find it. He was never seen again. 80 years later, the author (with the help of modern technology, as well as the devastation brought to the rainforest by logging and the like) tries to find out what happened to Fawcett. He doesn’t find Fawcett, but what he does find is even more astounding.