River of Darkness by Buddy Levy

River of Darkness : Francisco Orellana and the Deadly First Voyage through the Amazon

The acclaimed author of Conquistador and Labyrinth of Ice charts one of history’s greatest expeditions, a legendary 16th-century adventurer’s death-defying navigation of the Amazon River.

In 1541, Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro and his lieutenant Francisco Orellana searched for La Canela, South America’s rumored Land of Cinnamon, and the fabled El Dorado, “the golden man.” Quickly, the enormous expedition of mercenaries, enslaved natives, horses, and hunting dogs were decimated through disease, starvation, and attacks in the jungle. Hopelessly lost in the swampy labyrinth, Pizarro and Orellana made the fateful decision to separate. While Pizarro eventually returned home in rags, Orellana and fifty-seven men continued into the unknown reaches of the mighty Amazon jungle and river. Theirs would be the greater glory.

Interweaving historical accounts with newly uncovered details, Levy reconstructs Orellana’s journey as the first European to navigate the world’s largest river. Every twist and turn of the powerful Amazon holds new wonders and the risk of death.

Levy gives a long-overdue account of the Amazon’s people—some offering sustenance and guidance, others hostile, subjecting the invaders to gauntlets of unremitting attacks and signs of terrifying rituals.

No Limits to Their Sway by Edgardo Perez Morales

No Limits to Their Sway: Cartagena's Privateers and the Masterless Caribbean in the Age of Revolutions by Edgardo Perez Morales offers a fresh perspective on a Revolutionary era, focusing on the role of Afro-Caribbean privateers in the struggle for South American independence from Spain Following the 1808 French invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, an unprecedented political crisis threw the Spanish Monarchy into turmoil. 

On the Caribbean coast of modern-day Colombia, the important port town of Cartagena rejected Spanish authority, finally declaring independence in 1811. With new leadership that included free people of color, Cartagena welcomed merchants, revolutionaries, and adventurers from Venezuela, the Antilles, the United States, and Europe. Most importantly, independent Cartagena opened its doors to privateers of color from the French Caribbean. Hired mercenaries of the sea, privateers defended Cartagena's claim to sovereignty, attacking Spanish ships and seizing Spanish property, especially near Cuba, and establishing vibrant maritime connections with Haiti. 

Most of Cartagena's privateers were people of color and descendants of slaves who benefited from the relative freedom and flexibility of life at sea, but also faced kidnapping, enslavement, and brutality. Many came from Haiti and Guadeloupe; some had been directly involved in the Haitian Revolution. While their manpower proved crucial in the early Anti-Spanish struggles, Afro-Caribbean privateers were also perceived as a threat, suspected of holding questionable loyalties, disorderly tendencies, and too strong a commitment to political and social privileges for people of color. 

Based on handwritten and printed sources in Spanish, English, and French, this book tells the story of Cartagena's multinational and multicultural seafarers, revealing the Trans-Atlantic and maritime dimensions of South American independence.

'The Shape of Ruins,' by Juan Gabriel Vásquez

From The Washington Post:

On the afternoon of April 9, 1948, an assassin drew a pistol on a downtown Bogota street and took the life of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a charismatic, populist political icon who was one of the great South American orators of his time.

An enraged mob quickly formed, chasing down the presumed killer, a stonemason named Juan Roa Sierra, and yanking him into the street where he was pummeled to death. Hundreds, or by some estimates thousands, died in the riots that followed, a searing moment in Colombian history dubbed “El Bogotazo” that ushered in an era of extraordinary violence known as “La Violencia.”

read rest of review by Manuel Roig-Franzia @ Washington Post