Savages

by Joe Kane

Release Date: 27 August, 1996

Edition: Paperback

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One of the best books I've ever read!

I first read this book about two years ago and have since given copies as gifts to friends and have passed my own copy about to many colleagues. I work in the oil industry and I believe that this book is a MUST READ for all foreign workers in the Amazon region. My field of work involves protecting the interests of the local people and the health of the environment and I can assure the previous reviewer that while the oil companies have much to answer for historically that there is a small army of us working on the inside and who have found Savages to be one of the best books around. Joe Kane writes in journalistic style presenting events as they unfolded and he sheds light on several issues relating to foreign activity in developing countries that are seldom thought about by those who participate in the "invasion". Mr Kane's writing had me in fits of laughter at times and at other times I was in tears. By the end of the book I felt that I almost knew the people whose lives were discussed and I certainly closed the cover with a new understanding and questions that I had not asked myself before. Anyone contemplating a trip to the jungle of Ecuador, or other Amazonian nation, should make a point of reading this book. It is factual, interesting and tells a real life drama that describes the beginning of what will probably be the final days of the isolated people of the Amazon. It will be up to you as the reader to form an opinion on the situation as Kane doesn't do it for you. He does however raise the interesting question that may not be answered easily - what rights do isolated people have to remain isolated and completely unaffected by the development of the world? Read Savages for yourself and see if you can answer that question.

What is a Savage?

Joe Kane, author of best selling 'Running the Amazon', has tackled a subject often thought of as being the job of anthropologists and the like. As a reporter, Kane has done a good job of relaying details such as the environment the Huaorani live in and the details of the oil industry that looms over their part of the Ecuadorian Amazon. As mentioned in another review, the anthropological insite Kane offers in response to Huaorani culture and how it has changed and adapted to its situation leaves something to be desired. That said, I do not find this to be a problem. Kane is writing for an audience that would probably find most anthropological scholarly texts dry and unintersting, but he has managed to explain the conflict that has arisen due to oil exploitation in the rainforest, all the while demonstrating the effects this exploitation has on humans in the area. I wa spleased to see that Kane demonstrated how the Huaorani have formed a sort of resistance to the destruction of the environment they call home by using conduits provided by external political groups, thus demonstrating how the marginalized make themselves known. The book is engagingly written and Kane, while unable to hide his anti-corporate and anti-oil exploitation sentiments (with which I agree), has made a worthy case for the halting of oil exploitation at the level it was (and still is) being carried on in the Amazon.