Dean S. (greenbau) reviewed Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice : An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Rain Forest on + 4 more book reviews
Excellent book and not really at all out of date although published in 1993. The struggle to protect indigenous knowledge and habitat is still there. Written as sequential narrative, although one suspects considerably simplified and dramatized to introduce the various teaching points, this makes accounts of ethnobotany easy to swallow without any nauseous after-effects. The writer is really dedicated and obviously an expert in his field of South American medicinal plants and native cures. The book focuses on research among real people in just a few locations in the northern amazonian region, which makes it easy to keep track of the places and players. I was engrossed in this book (and read it while visiting tropical Florida which gave it a bit more reality although that is a very different kind of jungle)
