This is the stuff of adventure movies. Like Russ Mittermeir and Wade Davis, Mark Plotkin is the student of the extraordinary Richard Schultes at Harvard University, a pioneer in the field of ethnobotany. In this marvelous book Plotkin recounts his work documenting the use of medicinal plants among remote tribes in the Northwest Amazon of Suriname, Venezuela, Guyana and French Guiana. The book is a portrait of people and their environment, a tale of adventure and -- most of all -- a moving example of science in the service of preservation. He reminds us, "every time a shaman dies, it is as if a library burned down."  (AMZ15, $16.00)

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