Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest | 
 enlarge | Author: Mark J. Plotkin
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Rating:  49 reviews
Sales Rank: 89585
Media: Paperback
Pages: 328
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 014012991X
Dewey Decimal Number: 581.6
EAN: 9780140129915
ASIN: 014012991X
Publication Date: August 1, 1994
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Amazon.com Review
A century ago, malaria was killing Washingtonians, Londoners, Parisians. Today HIV, along with various cancers, has taken its place among worldwide epidemics. Quinine, extracted from the cinchona tree of the Amazonian rainforest, quelled malaria; alkaloids taken from trees in the West African rainforest may well yield a cure for AIDS. Yet those woods, Mark Plotkin tells us, are fast disappearing, along with the native peoples who know the powers of the plants that dwell there. His account of wandering through the Amazonian jungles focuses on local knowledge about plants, whose uses range from the mundane to the magical. The rainforests of the world, Plotkin notes, are our greatest natural resource, an intercultural pharmacy that can cure woes both known and yet unvisited.
Product Description
Western medicine is only just beginning to value the curative powers of plants and herbs found in the Amazon rain forests. The story of ethnobotanist Mark Plotkins's apprenticeship with shaman wise men of the area is truly an anthropological adventure, that also vividly clarifies what destruction of the rain forests may ultimately cost humanity.Photos. Author lecture tour.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 44 more reviews...
 Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice Review November 21, 2008
Stephanie
I didn't really care for the book itself, but I needed it for a class and it was a decent price. It was also in good shape when I got it.
 A family favorite October 28, 2008
Sohier Dane (Palo Alto, CA)
This is one of only three books that everyone in my family loves. It's a real gem.
 unapologetically unprepared, poorly written, city slicker March 24, 2008
Mr Reviewer
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Mark Plotkin, we learn in this book, collected a lot of information from natives of the Amazon. I myself am not a field scientist, but I assume this reflects a certain amount of charisma. If Plotkin's charismatic, he's a terrible writer: the sort of story which _ought_ to be thrilling, and (you would hope) would be if he were telling you in person, is simply dull. Moments alluded to in other reviews --the electric eel close call, the burrowing flea-- are episodes only a few dispassionate, tell-don't-show sentences long. (And it's enough to mention that his dialog is unbelievably unbelievable, that his editor never learned that in a short and quickly-read book you don't chunks of information repeated from one chapter to the next, or that there is an art to mixing narrative with scholarly history-- that just mixing them up doesn't make it work.)
Plotkin is not his inspirational teacher, RE Shultes, or his inspirational mentor, R Mittermeier. He keeps his shoes on, he wears clean white shirts, he learns the rudiments of a single language while in the field, he carries water on hikes when he _knows and tells us_ that as soon as he runs out all he has to do is mention it and a local will point him to the appropriate stand of vegetation. Parts of several stories involve bits like, 'I [endangered my friend's life/seriously insulted someone/etc] -- but you know, I hadn't learned about that sort of thing.'
Maybe you still think you should read this, because you're interested in the medicinal or psychoactive uses of plants. It is no exaggeration to say that nearly all of Plotkin's work under shamans reads like this: 'I collected a sample of the plant. Maybe lab work will someday (though probably not with my sample, because it's dried) find an important compound in it.'
While there is no absolutely no question that Plotkin was doing invaluable work by preserving Amazonian medicinal plant knowledge (and, again, I bet that, thanks to these experiences, he is more than the embarrassing city slicker he writes as), this is not the book to read about it in.
Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice October 10, 2007
Molly A. Dilworth (Brooklyn, NY United States)
This was purchased for my mother, who's taking a trip to Costa Rica. I read it years ago and remembered liking it. She read it, loved it and is now passing it around to her fellow-travelers.
 Fascinating, Enligtening Read!! July 26, 2007
DawnA
I typically don't get too deeply interested in scientific books simply because unless that's your cup of tea they can come off very dry, dull reads. I was pleasantly surprised with this book however. The mention of shamanism in the title peaked my interest and I found this book to have numerous entertaining stories about an ethnobotanist's travels and studies across the Amazon. Many times during my reading, I would picture the Sean Connery film Medicine Man! The stories of this man trying to earn the respect and trust of the natives and constantly being laughed at and nicknamed "pananakiri" (natives' word for "white man" or "city slicker")were very entertaining and the information on the origins of many everyday household products here in the States was incredibly interesting. I also appreciate how this book stresses the importance of preserving the rain forests and the native cultures inside them. Plotkin definitely makes it clear how truly remarkable and irreplaceable these places are.
There were some sections that did feel like the author would run off on tangent topics, giving the book some portions of reading that drag on a bit. This would be the only reason I would give this book 4 stars rather than 5. Definitely recommended!!
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