The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2009

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Chapter 5

Chapters 6-13

Chapters 14-17

Chapters 18-21

Chapters 22-25

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 14-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 14 Summary: “The Case for Z”

Between 1906 and 1914, through a series of expeditions into the Amazon, Fawcett comes to believe that an advanced civilization once existed there. Important clues appear in unexpected places. In 1910, for instance, Fawcett and Costin make contact with a group of supposedly hostile Guarayos who prove friendly. Fawcett notes that the Guarayos have plenty of food and seem to know a great deal about local plants’ medicinal properties. Henceforth, Fawcett appears less interested in mere exploration and increasingly drawn to anthropological and broader scientific pursuits. As a man of his time, he never does transcend the Victorian Era’s obsession with race, but he also develops a genuine regard for the Amazon’s native tribes, as evidenced by his insistence that those tribes’ ancestors were capable of building and sustaining an advanced civilization.

In 1914, Fawcett, Costin, and Manley venture deep into the interior. There, they come upon a clearing, where they discover houses and agricultural fields. They make contact with the Maxubis, a previously unknown Indigenous tribe with a “large population numbering in the several thousands” (161). The Maxubis appear healthier than other tribes, their culture more sophisticated. If such a tribe could exist undetected at such a distance from major rivers, then the prospects for a large, ancient civilization appear even more favorable. Elsewhere, far from any known settlements, and particularly at higher altitudes, Fawcett discovers shards of pottery and observes geometric patterns in the landscape that appear to be the outlines of roads. As the idea of Z crystallizes in his mind, Fawcett grows more wary of his competitors in Amazon exploration, especially the American multimillionaire Dr. Alexander Hamilton Rice.

Chapter 15 Summary: “El Dorado”

Fawcett researches centuries-old accounts of El Dorado, the rumored city of gold. Since the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, Europeans had searched the New World for dazzling cities, such as the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, present-day Mexico City. In 1541-42, a Spanish expedition under Francisco de Orellana traveled the length of the Amazon River. Orellana was so transfixed by what he saw (including thousands of Indigenous peoples, among them “female Amazon warriors”) and so convinced of El Dorado’s existence that he made a second and ill-fated venture three years later (172). The famed English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh also believed in El Dorado and also launched an expedition that came up empty. Fawcett does not buy into the more extravagant claims surrounding the El Dorado legend, but he does regard the early conquistadors’ descriptions of large native settlements as consistent with the evidence he has seen in his travels through the region. Unsure of what accounts for the demise of the native population, Fawcett even suggests that some biological catastrophe, such as imported disease, might have befallen them.

Chapter 16 Summary: “The Locked Box”

Grann travels to Rio de Janeiro to view “what Fawcett considered the final piece of evidence supporting his theory of a lost civilization in the Amazon” (178). At Brazil’s National Library, Grann examines a fraying document, dated 1753, in which a group of Portuguese explorers describe the breathtaking “ruins of an ancient city” (180). The 18th-century document also features symbols Grann recognizes from one of Fawcett’s diaries.

Chapter 17 Summary: “The Whole World is Mad”

World War I derails Fawcett’s plans. In 1914, after a year in the Amazon, Fawcett sails for England, volunteers, and serves as a major in the Royal Field Artillery. He proves skillful in war and is promoted to lieutenant colonel, in which position he commands more than 700 men. He takes part in the catastrophic Battle of the Somme, which began on July 1, 1916, the bloodiest single day in British military history. Surrounded by death and living in constant terror of poison gas, Fawcett likely develops what later generations would recognize as PTSD. At home on leave, he sits in silence and increasingly turns to the occult. A fellow officer recalls Fawcett using a Ouija board to determine enemy positions and then ordering his artillery to fire upon those locations. After the war, Fawcett returns home to find that his now-16-year-old son Jack has developed a strong physique and is preparing to accompany his father into the Amazon someday.

Fixated on Z, Fawcett is determined to lead another expedition, but he struggles to secure funding. Undeterred, he relocates his family to Jamaica, closer to his objective. Meanwhile, Dr. Rice has returned to the jungle, this time carrying a special radio and every other tool his near-limitless resources could provide. News that Dr. Rice has discovered “ancient Indian paintings” is enough to “put Fawcett in a frenzy” (200). At a fundraising meeting with Brazilian officials, Fawcett lies about his military rank, claiming to be a full colonel rather than a lieutenant colonel, to increase his prestige in their eyes. The Brazilian government supplies barely enough funding for Fawcett and two others whom Fawcett recruits: Lewis Brown and Ernest Holt. The expedition proves an unmitigated disaster. Brown and Holt fall apart, both physically and mentally. Animals collapse and die. Even Fawcett, now 53, struggles with pain and illness. Fearing Holt will die if they proceed with the expedition, Fawcett retreats in disgust. After the party emerges from the jungle, Holt recovers and is determined to try again, but Fawcett, increasingly paranoid, fears that Holt might be a spy. Fawcett begins dreaming of the day when his son Jack can accompany him.

Chapters 14-17 Analysis

Chapters 14-17 temporarily break the narrative pattern of alternating between Fawcett’s story and Grann’s. This immersive look at Fawcett’s experiences helps paint a clear picture of Fawcett’s frame of mind around the time of the doomed expedition. It also sets up a narrative tension for the later chapters that describe Grann’s experiences since the audience is given clear indications of the dangers awaiting Grann and his companions as they wrap up their preparations and begin their expedition at the beginning of Chapter 19. These chapters are also the book’s heaviest on analysis and theme-building.

During the Victorian Era, the Western world’s intense obsession with race reached its apex. In the latter third of the 19th century, Europeans engaged in a relentless scramble for colonies in Asia and Africa, and they justified this scramble by citing their own presumptive racial superiority. Europeans called upon their own agents of imperialism to go forth and bring the dark-skinned peoples of the world into the light of civilization. These were not fringe ideas; they were conventional wisdom, repeated and affirmed everywhere in the culture. Scientific journals took Western racial superiority as a given. In these respects, Fawcett was a man of his time. Hemming describes Fawcett as a racist who spouted “eugenic gibberish,” and Grann agrees that Fawcett “could not rid himself of the pernicious disease of race” (159). This lone point of agreement between Hemming and Grann reveals more about the era in which Fawcett lived than about Fawcett himself.

Fawcett’s theory of Z illustrates one way in which he does manage to escape his era’s conventional wisdom. Apart from the physical evidence he uncovers on one expedition after another, Fawcett’s acceptance of the early conquistadors’ accounts constitutes the most important component of that theory. Throughout the Western Hemisphere,16th-century Spanish explorers reported vast settlements with populations numbering in the thousands. Fawcett dismisses the El Dorado legend of a glittering city with a ruler so powerful that he “goes about continually covered in gold dust,” but he comes to believe that ancient cities not only existed but were prosperous (169). He also begins to wonder what happened to all the native people the Spaniards encountered. In these respects, Fawcett is ahead of his time.

One piece of evidence merits scrutiny. In Chapter 16, Grann views a 1753 Portuguese document that describes the ruins of a “populous and opulent” ancient city (180). Grann cites this document as key to Fawcett’s theory. The historian John Hemming, however, writes that Fawcett was merely “told about a scrap of paper dated 1743” in which a group of Portuguese slavers “imagined that they had seen a deserted city in the jungles.” When he returns to the Amazon after World War One, Fawcett follows a familiar trail into the jungle, “even though it was nowhere near where the chimera city might have been.” If the 10-year difference in Grann’s and Hemming’s dates amounts to a mere typo, then the difference is meaningless. The document’s significance, however, is another matter. Keeping in mind the book’s critical context, this disagreement is a further instance in which Hemming believes Grann has taken liberties with the evidence.

Fawcett’s experience in World War I both highlights the book’s critical context and deepens his obsession with Z. Grann refers to a “rumor among some officers that Fawcett used a Ouija board […] to help make tactical decisions on the battlefield” (190). Hemming, however, describes this as more than rumor, for Hemming’s own father served under Fawcett and reportedly witnessed this behavior. Either way, there is no doubt that World War I imposed a severe strain on Fawcett’s mind. Even in an era that did not yet recognize PTSD, it was clear that Fawcett was coming unraveled, and it is no wonder. Throughout his adult life, Fawcett craved activity and could not bear to sit still. In the jungle, he faced dangers but always kept moving. Trench warfare, however, forced him to endure both terror and idleness at the same time.