Dr. Richard Evans Schultes, regarded as the father of contemporary ethnobotany, carried out extensive field studies, particularly in the Amazon. He received numerous awards including the Cross of Boyaca, Columbia’s highest honor, and the annual GOld Medal of the World Wildlife Fund. In 1987 he received the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and in 1992 he was awarded the Linnean Gold Medal, the highest award a botanist can receive. Dr. Schultes was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Linnean Society of London, three Latin American Academies, the Academy of India, and the Third World Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Mark J. Plotkin has led the Amazon Conservation Team and guided its vision since 1996, when he co-founded the organization with his fellow conservationist, Liliana Madrigal. He is a renowned ethnobotanist who has spent almost three decades studying traditional plant use with traditional healers of tropical America.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Where the Gods Reign is a magnificent book by one of the greatest Amazon explorers of this century - a must of the library of any Amazon oriented person… a work of art as well as an addition to the popular literature on the Amazon. — Sir Ghillean Prance, PhD, Botanist & Ecologist, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens
Having slipped away from his own world, Richard Evans Schultes experienced through multiple lens - his eyes, the delicately honed glass of his camera, the visionary realm of the sacred plant medicines- an exotic land on the cusp of change. He was the right person in the right place at the right time to accomplish greatness and leave in his wake an astonishing photographic legacy. — Wade Davis, Author of Magdalena: River of Dreams and One River, and Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society
Dr. Richard Evans Schultes, was for many years the Director of the Harvard Botanical Museum. He spent over 14 years continuously traveling and collecting plants in the Amazon, and was widely and deservedly considered the world’s authority on psychedelic and other psychoactive plants of the region. He was passionate about his work, and was a consummate teacher as well as explorer. He was beloved by many generations of students, and inspired many of them to follow in his footsteps. Were it not for Schultes there would be no modern discipline of ethnopharmacology. While he published prodigiously and produced many excellent scientific studies, Where the Gods Reign was written with a general audience in mind. Well enhanced with many beautiful photographs, most of which were taken by Schultes himself, this work is an enthralling and fascinating gateway to the mystery and wonder of sacred psychoactive plants of the Amazon, and to its people for whom they were a living mystery. Synergetic Press deserves many kudos for resurrecting this classic work in an elegant and lovely edition. — Dennis McKenna, author of The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss: My Life with Terence McKenna
We are in the midst of a psychedelic renaissance driven by science and economic opportunities. This beautiful reprint of Richard Schultes’ work is a timely reminder of the cultural and ethnobotanical roots of this conversation, and the importance of honoring Indigenous plant knowledge. Readers are treated to spectacular images and vivid descriptions that reveal Schultes’ passion for understanding the enchantment of sacred plants in the Amazon. — Erika Dyck, PhD, Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, University of Saskatchewan
In this gem of a book, the legendary explorer and botanist Richard Evans-Schultes, chose the best among the thousands of photographs he took during his fourteen years of stay in the northwestern Amazon, mostly in Colombia, a country that became for him a second home. The photos are accompanied by short poetic, precise phrases, distilled texts summarizing Schultes immense knowledge of the area, and carefully chosen quotes from some of the greatest explorers and ethnographers of the Amazon. I have often perused this marvelous book again and again with great pleasure. This new edition will be a source knowledge and inspiration to many new readers. — Luis Eduardo Luna, PhD, Co-editor of The Ayahuasca Reader: Encounters with the Amazon’s Sacred Vine and Director of Wasiwaska Research Center
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Review
"Richard Schultes is a true ethnobotanist, the incarnation and almost the inventor of this discipline ... Where the Gods Reign is a picture book, ... of great beauty and tranquility ... full of fascinating information." --Sir John Hemming, Times Literary Supplement
"Where the Gods Reign is a magnificent book by one of the greatest Amazon explorers of this century -- a must for the library of any Amazon oriented person."
--Sir Ghillean Prance, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew.
"The numerous photographs are at once spectacular, beautiful, fascinating, and of excellent quality ... It is likely that only Professor Schultes has had or ever will have the resources to produce such ... a remarkable book."
--Willard Van Adsall, Journal of Ethnobiology --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
