When We Sold God's Eye: Diamonds, Murder and a Clash of Worlds in the Amazon

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'A first-class work of reporting . . . above all a work of compassion for Indigenous peoples everywhere' BENJAMIN MOSER, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of SONTAG

'A non-fiction novel of modern conquest, capitalism and murder . . . a stunning work' GREG GRANDIN, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of FORDLANDIA

Growing up in a remote corner of the world's largest rainforest, Pio, Maria, and Oita learned to hunt wild pigs and tapirs, gathering Brazil nuts and aa berries from centuries-old trees. Then the first highway pierced through, ranchers, loggers, and prospectors invaded, and they lost their families to terrible new weapons and diseases. Pushed by the government to assimilate, they struggled to figure out their new, capitalist reality, discovering its wonders as well as its horrors. They ended up forging an uneasy symbiosis with their white antagonists - until decades of suppressed trauma erupted into a massacre, an act of retribution that made headlines across the globe.

Based on six years of immersive reporting and research, WHEN WE SOLD GOD'S EYE tells a unique kind of adventure story, one that begins with a river journey by Teddy Roosevelt and ends with smugglers from Antwerp and New York City's Diamond District. It's a story of survival against all odds; of the temptations of wealth and the dream of prosperity; of a vital ecosystem threatened by the hunger for natural resources; of genocide and revenge. It's a story as old as the first European encounters with Indigenous people, playing out in the present day. But most of all, it's about a few startlingly clever individuals and their power to adapt and even thrive in the most unlikely circumstances.

Reviews

Alex Cuadros spent years culturally embedded with the Cinta Larga, and tells their tragic but exciting story. He achieves the remarkable feat of understanding and sympathizing with both sides' attitudes, cultures, and motives, with a vibrant cast of real people -- John Hemming, author * THE CONQUEST OF THE INCAS *
An extraordinary work of narrative nonfiction, telling the gripping and astonishing story of how a small group in the Amazon, invaded and brutally treated by white settlers and miners, ended up exploiting an illicit diamond mine themselves. This is a complex and tragic story, deeply reported and beautifully written - a remarkable literary achievement -- Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author * THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD *
This book reads like a wondrous combination of Heart of Darkness and In Cold Blood, a nonfiction novel of modern conquest, capitalism, and murder. Cuadros writes with unsentimental compassion and unflinching moral clarity, investing his protagonists with human complexity while still reckoning with the broader social forces driving the destruction of the Amazon. A stunning work -- Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author * THE END OF THE MYTH and FORDLANDIA *
To the shelf of anthropological classics that includes Gregory Bateson's Naven, Levi Strauss's Tristes Tropiques, and Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa, we can now add Alex Cuadros's When We Sold God's Eye. Cuadros takes us into one of the most forbidding regions of the globe, and inside the minds of an ancient people as they take their first - diseased, bloodstained - steps into so-called civilization. A first-class work of reporting, this book is above all a work of compassion for Indigenous peoples everywhere, forced to navigate a nearly impossible passage -- Benjamin Moser, Pulitzer Prize-winning author * SONTAG *
Truly remarkable reporting, opening a window into one of the planet's most important places, and the people who live out their lives amidst its riches. It will complicate your view of the world, which is usually a useful thing -- Bill McKibben, author * THE END OF NATURE *

Author Bio

Alex Cuadros is the author of Brazillionaires: Wealth, Power, Decadence, and Hope in an American Country, which was long-listed for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award. A former Bloomberg staff reporter, he's also written for the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post, and his article on the Amazon's ecological tipping point was chosen for 2024's Best American Science and Nature Writing. He spent six years based in Brazil and has been reporting from the Amazon since 2013. He now lives with his wife in San Francisco.