The Lost City of the Monkey God

An interesting and rapid read, on a great explorers trope of lost cities!

To be fair Douglas Preston works hard to avoid this book following that trope. However, it is what it is, to some degree. He attempts to break the mould, by breaking his book into three parts and making the lost city discovery the smaller of the three.

The first part covers previous explorations to the Mosquitia area, primarily in exploration to discover (or visits to, and legends about) Ciudad Blanca, or the fabled White City. These included Spaniard Hernán Cortés in 1526;, America John Lloyd Stephens in the 1830s; Mormon Church originated expeditions to investigate the Maya, who the Book or Mormon identified as a lost tribe of Israel (that one ended badly with most of the explorers being excommunicated because they were doubtful of the link!).

Moving on to the 20th Century, Preston covers Luxembourgian ethnologist Eduard Conzemius, and in the 1930s William Duncan Strong who was the first to recognise that there were sites that had been inhabited by ancient, unknown people who were not Maya. Next was George Gustav Heye, a wealthy American collector of Indian artifacts - who engaged an explorer to carry out the actual work. Frederick Mitchell-Hedges turned out unfortunately to be a con-artist. Heye's next two expeditions was led by Canadian R. Stuart Murray, and brought back various artifacts. It was Murray who was to introduce Theodore Morde to Heye, having met him on a cruise ship where Murray was a guest lecturer and Morde a journalist.

Heye engaged Morde to undertake his next expedition, and it has been Morde's expedition that has given much voice to the legends of the City of the Monkey God, and therefore inspired Steve Elkins to fund the expeditions and work that is the subject of Preston's book. Morde's journey is then described in some detail, including the reviewing of his personal diary, which had not been seen in full before, as it was owned by his family. It was this journey which inspired also Christopher Stewart in his book Jungleland, which I read and reviewed mid 2023. Here Preston makes some interesting discoveries I won't spoil for others.

And so all of this leads into the Steve Elkin's funding venture. This consists of use of new tech (for that time) LIDAR scanning, after establishing likely sites that they name T1, T2, T3 & T4. There is a lot going on here, and I don't want to spoil what is a gripping read. After the lidar scanning gives big hopes, they are able to organise the actual on-the-ground exploration - Preston does a good job of describing all the logistics, process, risks (think biting insects, fer-de-lance and coral snakes!) and of course the discoveries.

Coming back to the third section of the book then, Preston covers the Leishmaniasis which the majority of those who visited the site had to deal with on their return to civilisation. Leishmania braziliensis is a very hard to treat strain of Leishmaniasis, and the cure is often at bad for the body as the parasitic disease is. Caused by sandfly bites, infected by a host animal with the disease, the outcome being a disease that eats away at the mucous membranes of the nose and mouth, but initially displays as a lesion or skin tumour that won't heal. Preston covers his own treatment and some of the others in a more general way. This section of the book was particularly interesting and identifies the risks to the old world explorer in the new world. Preston goes on to expand on the reverse - the impact that old world explorers bringing disease to the new world Indians, in some cases wiping out 90% of the population!

4 stars.

Ewe sand flies

Here lies my expectations, completely unmet.

Yes, a lost city is discovered. Two, actually, but we only hear about one of them for reasons. The other is mentioned a few times, but I have no idea if anything significant was there. Yes, the City of the Monkey God was mentioned in the leadup to exploring the city (also called the White City), but it never was said if this city was actually the city of legend or not. Yes, this was a true story, but more of a true story about the leishmaniasis disease than a true story about lost city exploration.

I loved the first half of the book leading up to the expedition. There was a ton of information laid out about the legend of the White City and the technological means they used to map out difficult to explore jungle regions in search of the ruins. I also loved the exploration of the ruins they selected as the likely site, and the author’s experiences there. But we spend hardly any time there at all (about a chapter and a half), before he’s back in civilization and dealing with his struggle with leishmaniasis. Which, don’t get me wrong, is a valid topic as I hadn’t heard of the disease before and evidently gets very little funding for research because of its prevalence in the poor populations of countries, I was just expecting more of the Lost City of the Monkey God in my Lost City of the Monkey God book.

I actually learned more about the ruins from the author’s article (found here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/150302-honduras-lost-city-monkey-god-maya-ancient-archaeology ) than I did from the author’s book. Just kind of a letdown all around, honestly.

Get lost in the jungles, and go on an epic adventure in the search for a lost city. Douglas Preston takes you through Honduras, and the decades-long search for the White City. Many are convinced that it does not exist, but there are some that are sure it does.

This was a fascinating read, and it was a great journey! I absolutely LOVED this book. For those who are interested in archaeology and lost civilizations, this will captivate you from the beginning, and share the ups and downs of excavating in a jungle setting.

I was worried this would read as a trashy travelogue- it does not.

Well arranged, not too concise, and avoids feeling long-winded. I recommend.

The book is overall very interesting. The author is a guarantee of an engrossing story. The subject was very difficult to put on page in a convincing way but overall Preston did a good job.

I love how he goes over the history of the myth of the city and then how he goes into detail about how they found a civilization and busted the myth of the city to start uncovering the truth. I like how he showed the way this discovery is tied to politics and epidimeology and culture and so many things. I can't wait to find out more about this civilization and the role they played in the history of this hemisphere.

Fine book about a legitimately interesting archeological discovery but still, just not comfortable with these Indiana Jones style narratives - as accurate as they may be.

Fantastic read! Best armchair travel read I've had in a long time! And a ton of educational material.
The closing chapter is pretty prophetic.

fine, if schematic

It's the twenty-first century and there are still entire cities lying abandoned—and unlooted!—in the deep jungle. Entire civilizations we know almost nothing about. This is the story of the discovery (via lidar) and much-much-too-brief exploration of one such ruin. It's also much more: a hard-hitting reminder of how disease swept through and annihilated ninety percent of the population of the Americas, and how Europeans cruelly murdered many of the rest; it's also an eye-opening description of leishmaniasis, a devastating disease we will start seeing more of in the coming years.

This was fascinating!!

I highly enjoyed this book! The story was enjoyable, and it was filled with compelling information. I could not absorb it fast enough.

Interesting read. What starts as a travel log detailing the efforts to explore ancient cultures buried in the jungles of Honduras, takes a harrowing turn when half of the expedition party is stricken with a rare parasite that can cause disfigurement and death. Both subjects are fascinating, but it was not exactly what I was expecting. The descriptions of LIDAR technology were incredibly fascinating, something I'm vaguely familiar with in it's use to quickly build 3d models of real world objects. In the book they use it scan and map vast areas of dense jungle, uncovering sites that have been lost to the trees for centuries. The author also covers Honduran culture and history, helping to explain why traveling and exploring the country can be so dangerous and difficult - from officials seeking bribes, to venomous snakes, to drug traffickers hijacking trucks of jet fuel.

While I thought it was a good read, it got kind of slow in the middle, and the ending kind of meandered away from the heart of the story. The author comes to the conclusion that the civilization of the city of the Jaguar was wiped out by Europeans bringing disease, while at the same time acknowledging that the city has been so newly re-discovered that there has been hardly any research yet. While it is not a bad hypothesis, as many thousands of people died horribly of disease after contact with encroaching Europeans, there is no evidence as to why the culture of this ancient city may have collapsed.

Also, this book has one of the most depressing, fatalistic endings I have ever seen- with a discussion of how global warming is causing the spread of disease and parasites, and ending with a statement that all cultures collapse eventually. “Sometimes, a society can see its end approaching from afar and still not be able to adapt, like the Maya; at other times, the curtain drops without warning and the show is over. No civilization has survived forever. All move toward dissolution, one after the other, like waves of the sea falling upon the shore. None, including ours, is exempt from the universal fate.” It was a wild turn from the adventurous love of travel and discovery in the earlier parts of the book.

Very interesting and well-written. A little slow to start. Not quite what I was hoping for but still worth a read.

Very interesting read into a real life Uncharted game. Keeps you enthralled the entire time.

Wow. Easily one of my top 5 books from 2017.

The Lost City of the Monkey God is about the expedition and the men who “discovered” the lost Ciudad Blanco. I put discovered in brackets because (as the book states) many native Hondurans already knew the location of the city. These natives generally avoided the area due to a curse on the city.

I don't want to give away too much, but readers should be aware that this is about more than just the city. It's about new technology, history, political upheavals, friendships, dangers, discovery and disease. When I picked this up, I expected something along the lines of The Lost City of Z (A book I eventually shelved as a DNF). Z focused on two parallel storylines, one in modern day and one of an ancient expedition. It asked question after question, yet never answered them. Monkey God asks questions and gives answers. It reiterates the perils, and also the beauty of the rainforest. It reminds us of the cultures that have come before us and how quickly mother nature can erase our existence. It is truly an excellent book.

After reading this and a book about Teddy Roosevelts adventures in the Amazon, [b:The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey 78508 The River of Doubt Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey Candice Millard https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1430014768s/78508.jpg 980007]I am more resolved to never visit the rain forest in Central and South America.This story was fascinating and terrifying. I would like to know more about the structuresin the city they uncovered.I will have to follow up on learning more about the ancient civilizations in that part of the world.

In 2012, Preston joined a group of scientists, archaeologists, photographers and film producers who traveled to La Mosquitia, an unexplored and dangerous region of Central American jungle. They faced floods, mountains, jaguars, deadly snakes, disease-carrying insects and other similar challenges. They brought along a new piece of NASA-owned laser technology known as LIDAR or Light Detection and Ranging, which confirmed a sprawling metropolis inhabited around the same time as the Mayan civilization in modern-day Mexico. Their intent was to map the city as well as explore and protect its rumored riches.

Sadly, I never really got into this book. It should have been exciting. But it ended up being a seemingly disconnected, ramble though history, the jungle and the technology involved. This book is marketed on sensationalism and thrill-seeking adventure, but in reality it's a lot less Indiana Jones and more of a discussion on realities of modern-day archaeological expeditions.

For me, I'm sorry to say, it was better to let sleeping monkey gods lie.

Although I normally read these types of books but I enjoy the author's fictional works so I thought why not? Besides the narrative of the expedition, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I learned a lot about deseases. Learning the history of how the New World basically “poisoned” and wiped out the population of those countries they visited. It was horrifying. And putting it in perspective of how the tables can turn on “us” was also eye opening.

As exciting as it gets...the author takes us along on an incredible journey of exploration, and opens our eyes to not only the dangers of such a trek, but the wonder of it as well.