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Magdalena
- River of Dreams: A Story of Colombia
- Narrated by: Wade Davis, Xandra Uribe
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
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Publisher's summary
A captivating new book from Wade Davis - award-winning, best-selling author and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence for more than a decade - that brings vividly to life the story of the great Río Magdalena, illuminating Colombia's complex past, present, and future.
Travelers often become enchanted with the first country that captures their hearts and gives them license to be free. For Wade Davis, it was Colombia. Now in a masterly new book, Davis tells of his travels on the mighty Magdalena, the river that made possible the nation. Along the way, he finds a people who have overcome years of conflict precisely because of their character, informed by an enduring spirit of place, and a deep love of a land that is home to the greatest ecological and geographical diversity on the planet. As Gabriel García Márquez once wrote during his own pilgrimage on the river: "The only reason I would like to be young again would be the chance to travel again on a freighter going up the Magdalena". Only in Colombia can a traveler wash ashore in a coastal desert, follow waterways through wetlands as wide as the sky, ascend narrow tracks through dense tropical forests, and reach verdant Andean valleys rising to soaring ice-clad summits. This rugged and impossible geography finds its perfect coefficient in the topography of the Colombian spirit: restive, potent, at times placid and calm, in moments explosive and wild.
Both a corridor of commerce and a fountain of culture, the wellspring of Colombian music, literature, poetry, and prayer, the Magdalena has served in dark times as the graveyard of the nation. And yet, always, it returns as a river of life.
At once an absorbing adventure and an inspiring tale of hope and redemption, Magdalena gives us a rare, kaleidoscopic picture of a nation on the verge of a new period of peace. Braiding together memoir, history, and journalism, Wade Davis tells the story of the country's most magnificent river, and in doing so, tells the epic story of Colombia.
Critic reviews
"This shimmering portrait of the Río Magdalena, evoking its moods and depths, ultimately reveals the complicated nation those waters sustain and reflect. Never wincing from dark histories, yet never abandoning hope, Wade Davis shows us why Colombia stole his heart as a young traveler and holds it still." (Kate Harris, author of Lands of Lost Borders)
"Illustrative... Davis's deep knowledge of and decades-long familiarity with Colombia notwithstanding, the freshest and most insightful sections occur when he is in the company of resident experts, and he is gracious enough to acknowledge that debt... Illuminating." (The Times Literary Supplement)
"Ardent.... Davis stocks his lively narrative with piquant characters, dramatic historical set pieces, and lyrical nature writing.... The result is a rich, fascinating study of how nature and a people shape each other." (Publishers Weekly, starred)
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The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic is both an epic story and a cry to the heart of humanity based on the author’s realization that human survival depends on keeping alive the seeds of our “original forgotten spiritual excellence.” Prechtel relates our current state of ecological crisis to the rapid disappearance of biodiversity, indigenous cultures, and shared human values. He demonstrates how real human culture is exterminated when real (not genetically modified) seeds are lost.
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Absolutely awesome and delicious!
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The Story We Carry in Our Bones
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More than 40 million people consider themselves Irish American, and yet most of them do not truly understand the rich cultural history of their ancestors. From prehistoric times to the emigration of the Irish to Amerikay, this broad, yet comprehensive, history gives a general overview of the deep history of Irish Americans.
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The history of Iceland began 1,200 years ago, when a frustrated Viking captain and his useless navigator ran aground in the middle of the North Atlantic. Suddenly, the island was no longer just a layover for the Arctic tern. Instead, it became a nation whose diplomats and musicians, sailors and soldiers, volcanoes and flowers, quietly altered the globe forever. How Iceland Changed the World takes readers on a tour of history, showing them how Iceland played a pivotal role in events as diverse as the French Revolution, the Moon Landing, and the foundation of Israel.
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Brilliant
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Believers
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Like many of us, Lisa Wells has spent years overwhelmed by news of apocalyptic-scale climate change and a coming sixth extinction. She did not need to be convinced of the stakes. But what can be done? Wells embarked on a pilgrimage, seeking answers in dedicated communities - outcasts and visionaries - on the margins of society.
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I believe
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By: Lisa Wells
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Following in the footsteps of the greatest Spanish adventurers, Michael Wood retraces the path of the conquistadors from Amazonia to Lake Titicaca, and from the deserts of North Mexico to the heights of Machu Picchu. As he travels the same routes as Hernán Cortés, Francisco, and Gonzalo Pizarro, Wood describes the dramatic events that accompanied the epic sixteenth-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires.
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Horrific anti-European bias
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Wrestling with History
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With exclusive insider status as Nikita Khrushchev’s great grand-daughter, and an ex-pat living and reporting on Russia and the Soviet Union since 1993, Nina Khrushcheva and Jeffrey Tayler offer a poignant exploration of the largest country on Earth through their recreation of Vladimir Putin’s fabled New Year’s Eve speech planned across all 11 time zones.
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Up to date assessment of Russia in 2019
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The dramatic and tragic story of the only successful Native American uprising against the Spanish, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
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Telling a story that doesn’t want to be told
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The Amur River
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The Amur River is almost unknown. Yet it is the 10th longest river in the world, rising in the Mongolian mountains and flowing through Siberia to the Pacific. For 1,100 miles, it forms the tense border between Russia and China. Simmering with the memory of land-grabs and unequal treaties, this is the most densely fortified frontier on Earth.
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Bleak
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A Pilgrimage to Eternity
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Moved by his mother's death and his Irish Catholic family's complicated history with the church, Timothy Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers to force a reckoning with his own beliefs. He embarked on a thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity, exploring one of the biggest stories of our time: the collapse of religion in the world that it created. The goal: walking to St. Peter's Square, in hopes of meeting the galvanizing pope who is struggling to hold together the church through the worst crisis in half a millennium.
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Adventures while in quarantine! ❤️
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Why Homer Matters
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Adam Nicolson sees the Iliad and the Odyssey as the foundation myths of Greek - and our - consciousness, collapsing the passage of 4,000 years and making the distant past of the Mediterranean world as immediate to us as the events of our own time.
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Fascinating
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The Shadow of Vesuvius
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When Pliny the Elder perished at Stabiae during the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, he left behind an enormous compendium of knowledge, his 37-volume Natural History, and a teenaged nephew who revered him as a father. Grieving his loss, Pliny the Younger inherited the Elder's notebooks - filled with pearls of wisdom - and his legacy. At its heart, The Shadow of Vesuvius is a literary biography of the younger man, who would grow up to become a lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, and chronicler of the Roman Empire.
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Enjoyable but lost track at times
- By Joshua Miller on 12-16-20
By: Daisy Dunn
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What listeners say about Magdalena
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Oravla Olam
- 05-31-21
'magic realism'
Wade Davis is a sensitive anthropologist and superb story teller. Even though "Magdalena" deals with some of the bloodiest and most violent passages of the history of Colombia, the elegance and precision of his descriptions transport the reader with ease to the natural theater of unfolding tragedies and accept their inevitable outcomes.
The comparison with "Love in the Time of Cholera" (El amor en los tiempos del cólera) a novel by Colombian Nobel prize winning author Gabriel García Márquez is within easy reach: a question of 'similar differences' and 'different similarities', imagination and reality overflowing each other's boundaries — its setting also the Magdalena River.
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- Anonymous User
- 06-21-24
Incredible narrative of the rio Magdalena
Highly recommend this book if you want to understand the history of Colombia and how intertwined it is with the great river.
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- lorenz quinley
- 02-25-23
Fantastic!
If you want to learn about the history, nature, people, and music of Colombia this is the book for you.
The book uses the Magdalena (the Mississippi of Colombia) as a foil to describe the nature and the stories of this most unique land. The breadth of the book is immense - from the freshwater manatees, to the atrocities of paramilitaries, to the history of the founding of the nation, to the evolution of cumbia.
The narration is spot on. Interesting, layered, book.
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- John
- 02-06-23
Increible
Passionate, scholarly, so well researched and told. Of great import to those who seek to understand one of the most complex and important areas in the world. Geography, ethnographic, you name it. Dystopian w. a bright glimmer of hope. Changed me.
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-20-21
Incredible, opened my eyes wide
Still reeling from the interwoven complex beautiful nature of the story telling.
Amazing tour through the time and place that left me unduly impressed and hopeful.
The history as told with reference to the Rio Magdalena is unforgettable logical and truly magical
Thank you Wade
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1 person found this helpful
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- Christopher J Graves
- 01-29-21
I need to go to Colombia NOW!! post covid...;)
Wade Davis love and longing for all things Colombian is infectious. This living narrative as told by many and written by Wade so expressively weaves the story and history of Colombia together like a brilliantly colored Wayuu mochila!! Love this book and love Colombia!
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- Anonymous User
- 02-04-22
Magdalena River of dreams
Fué extraordinario y más leído por el, sería importante que todos los Colombianos lo leyeran como cultura general, y para tener en la cabeza todo el país, tan biodiverso y grandioso en el que nacimos y amarlo, cuidarlo y conservarlo. Wade debería ser nuestro ministro de Medio Ambiente. Gracias!! lo he recomendado muchisimo.
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- Jeff M
- 11-29-20
Living in Colombia
for the last 5 years but with bits and pieces of the county's history - Magdalena is a colorful lesson of it's history, It covers 1000 years up to present day political conflicts from the perspective of the river. I now have a million more places to explore in this breathtaking county.
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- Rolando Ruiz
- 01-12-21
A must read for colombians
I enjoyed a lot listening to Wade Davis. Being.a colombian myself the story telled in this audiobook has helped me connect many dots as the river Magdalena has ports. It is true we have our backs facing the river and realizing this brought me to tears many times while walking and listening how for decades we have turn this artery of the country in our flowing graveyard.
Realizing we are an anfibian culture is something I will keep from this reading. This is a reminder of an idea developed early on by Orlando Fals Borda, founder of sociolocy as an academic career at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. It is an idea that hopefully not comes too late in my career as a teacher. I intend to spread this meme on to my students.
Wade Davis' profound love for Colombia is felt in every sentence in this book. We colombians need to feel it too in order to give the river, and therefore the country, a chance
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- barbara
- 10-27-23
Deep and abiding
This book is a love story to Colombia, and makes me want to travel every inch of that amazing country. I can't praise the book highly enough.
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