River of Doubt is a fantastic bit of history and partial biography of Teddy Roosevelt, the US president whom I think I most admire as a man (but not his policies). Roosevelt was a true adventurer, naturalist, and bon vivant who lived an outsized life. River of Doubt tells the story of his trip to the Amazon Basin where he set off to descend the River of Doubt, one of the Amazon's unexplored, nearly thousand mile long tributaries.

River of Doubt is a harrowing tale of adventure, misadventure, leadership, exploration, the ecology of the Amazon, and the politics of that day. It reads like a thriller but also does a good job of putting the story in historical context w/out overloading on the minutae that often overwhelm history books. IOW, it is good popular history, not the footnote-laden slog you might have read in school.

I think that being on the trip would have been one hell of a time, certainly historic, and no doubt very trying- definitely the kind of experience that is character-building!!!!