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Overall Summary
The Lost City of Z is a book by David Grann about an explorer who spent his life looking for a lost city. It was first published in 2009 and has since been adapted into a movie. The book received numerous awards nominations, including the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. Grann wrote several nonfiction books before writing this one, such as The New Yorker and The Hill.
No one knows what’s in the Amazon, but some people have ventured into it. One of those adventurers was Percy Harrison Fawcett, a British archaeologist and explorer. In 1925, he entered the rainforest with his son to find an ancient lost city called Z. After that trip no one heard from him again.
In the book, Grann introduces readers to Fawcett and his obsession with finding lost treasures. He served in the army for many years before turning to archaeology. One day, during a patrol through a dense jungle, he stumbled upon ancient ruins that changed his life forever.
Fawcett left the British Army and attended explorer’s school. Upper-class men often went on adventures to discover new civilizations, but they were properly trained first. Fawcett hated military life, so he was thrilled when his parents allowed him to leave the army honorably. His early experiences in the army inspired his desire for adventure later in life.
To complete The Lost City of Z, Grann traveled to England and read Fawcett’s own letters and journals. He found the explorer was very secretive about his work, so we can’t rely on any information that he left behind in those documents. We have to start from scratch with whatever clues we find in them.
We know that Fawcett loved the rainforest and he was obsessed with exploring it. He wanted to prove his worth and secure his place in history books, but we don’t know much else about him.
In the 20th century, a lot of people knew about El Dorado, which was the mythical name given to an imaginary tribal king who lived in a lost city of gold. Some explorers believed that Amazon concealed something similar. Whoever found this mysterious place would be the richest man on earth. Fawcett assumed that although tribes didn’t live scattered around Amazon forest all the time; they used to live together in one glorious city called Z.
Grann follows Fawcett’s trail into the Amazon. He’s looking for clues that will tell us where Fawcett ended up, and if he ever found this elusive city. Over the decades, many adventurers searched for Fawcett’s remains but no one finds him. Many of these adventurers suffer injury, illness or even death while they’re out there searching for him. Some aren’t seen again after going out to search for him; Grann wants to be the first man to find Fawcett—his obsession is rather like an adventurer’s.
Grann finds a guide who takes him to the Amazon. He journeys to Fawcett’s last known location, although his journals are unreliable. He encounters various tribes along the route and spends time with the Kalapalos tribe. Their chief believes that Fawcett did visit his people, but he died on their land.
Grann can’t prove that Fawcett died while staying with the Kalapalos tribe. He also can’t go any further into the rainforest because he is unwelcome there. He doesn’t want to leave emptyhanded, so he goes looking for scientists who may be able to help him with his research. One such scientist lives nearby and he wants Grann’s assistance in a project about local tribes living in the Amazonian rainforest.
An anthropologist named Michael Heckenberger agrees to meet with Grann. He tells Grann that there is evidence of a lost city in the Amazon, which was destroyed by invaders who killed the natives and forced them into isolation. The city is long since ruined.
