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Rating: 
Summary: A place best visited on the pages of a book
Review: An engrossing adventure story that describes the ultimate jungle trek gone bad. Authentic details starkly convey the expedition's desperate ordeal as they attempt to discover the shortest route between two oceans in Panama in the 1850's. I found the epilogue a satisfying wrap-up to the story as author Todd Balf details his own experiences 150 years later - almost as grueling without the tragedy. Another aspect of the book that I found fascinating was the first hand inforamtion on the Damien rain forest - one of the last unexplored regions on the planet.
Rating: 
Summary: Ill-Fated Expedition
Review: Author Todd Balf's "The Darkest Jungle" comes along as the latest in a glut of recent books about historical expeditions that came to grief because they were ill-equiped, poorly led, misguided, or some combination of the three. The United States' Darien Expedition of 1854, led by earnest Naval Lieutenant Issac Strain fell squarely into the last category. Misled by erroneous maps drawn by previous charlatan explorers, the Darien Expedition set off across the Panamanian ismuth in seach of a viable ship canal route and became hopelessly lost. Six men of the party starved to death, and most of the rest would have followed suit but for a heoric rescue effort led by Strain himself."The Darkest Jungle" is a well written book that tells the story of the Strain party with a minimum of hyperbole. Particularly gruesome are Balf's depictions of the ravaging effects that starvation and parasites had on the members of the party. As an added bonus, in the last chapter Balf briefly describes his own travels in the expedition's footsteps. The story of the Darien party isn't an epic, like that of the Scott party in Anarctica for example, but it still makes for enjoyable reading for anybody who likes real-life adventure tales.
Rating:
Summary: Ill-Fated Expedition
Review: Author Todd Balf's "The Darkest Jungle" comes along as the latest in a glut of recent books about historical expeditions that came to grief because they were ill-equiped, poorly led, misguided, or some combination of the three. The United States' Darien Expedition of 1854, led by earnest Naval Lieutenant Issac Strain fell squarely into the last category. Misled by erroneous maps drawn by previous charlatan explorers, the Darien Expedition set off across the Panamanian ismuth in seach of a viable ship canal route and became hopelessly lost. Six men of the party starved to death, and most of the rest would have followed suit but for a heoric rescue effort led by Strain himself. "The Darkest Jungle" is a well written book that tells the story of the Strain party with a minimum of hyperbole. Particularly gruesome are Balf's depictions of the ravaging effects that starvation and parasites had on the members of the party. As an added bonus, in the last chapter Balf briefly describes his own travels in the expedition's footsteps. The story of the Darien party isn't an epic, like that of the Scott party in Anarctica for example, but it still makes for enjoyable reading for anybody who likes real-life adventure tales.
Rating:
Summary: Stranger Than Fiction
Review: Balf does a great job of bringing readers up to speed with the time period the narrative takes place in, since most readers wouldn't know much of the race between the United States and Britain to find a path through central America and the various attempts before Strain's. The narrative itself reads extremely well, I finished this book in just a few days, yet I remember much of the details, particularly the botflies, which make me shudder to even read about. I agree with other reviewers who recommend it to adventure readers as well as history fans. 'Skeletons On The Zahara" by Dean King is also another worthwhile read, though I prefer Balf's less intrusive background information.
Rating:
Summary: When it finally starts, it's a great story
Review: QUICK REVIEW:
The story of the Darien Expedition is amazing, but the author takes his time getting to it. The entire book gives much more information than just the telling of the adventure, which can be interesting but also slow.
FULL REVIEW:
This 296 page book doesn't actually begin telling the story of the Darien Expedition until page 97, and the expedition comes to an end by page 224. But the expedition itself is incredible. For the group of explorers, though, the problems start almost immediately. The men accidentally get separated in two after just a couple of days. Soon they begin to face disease, injuries, vicious insects, dwindling supplies, troubles with the natives and eventually starvation and death. The lack of reliable maps (back in the 1800s) only compounds these problems. The endurance of the men is as impressive as their optimism but, unfortunately, lack of food and knowledge eventually take even those to their limits. The book, overall, is fairly well written and very well researched, and so it depends on what the reader is expecting as to how well it will be enjoyed. The first 97 pages are concerned with the history of other expeditions, the background of the people involved, and the trip from Philadelphia to the Darien jungle. Most of it is interesting, but it, using a phase from the book, was "progressing steadily yet slowly." The last 72 pages center around events from the lives of the remaining survivors during the years after the expedition. So if a reader is hoping to read about a dramatic adventure, s/he will most definitely find one, but it will be amidst a lot of extra information. If, however, a reader is interested in anything that might be pertinent or related to the expedition, s/he will be very satisfied with what the very-thorough author has provided.
Rating:
Summary: A stirring tale of a little known 1854 U.S. expedition
Review: The 1850's was known as the "canal era," in U.S. history. "Commerce was King," and President Franklin Pierce was an agressive expansionist who viewed the nation's borders expanding to Cuba and beyond. Moreover, Pierce was no less determined to be the first country to find a canal route on the Isthmus of Panama. At the time, the traditional sailing from east to west was around Cape Horn, "one of the most storm-ravaged passages in seafaring," and a four-month voyage to boot. A Darien Canal would cut the tough trip to California in half.
To this end, Todd Balf's "The Darkest Jungle: The True Story of the Darien Expedition and America's Ill-Fated Race to Connect the Seas," is a stirring tale of the 27-member exploring group and its dashing leader, Lieutenant Isaac Strain. The author (also an accomplished researcher) explains how the search across the Panama Isthmus was an old idea. In 1503, Christopher Columbus, on his fourth and final voyage carefully combed the Panama coast for the isthums but grew disgusted and abandoned the search. In 1513, Vasco Nunez de Balboa was the first European to see the Pacific from a peak on the Darian but did not successfully negotiate a passage.
Consequently, the January 19, 1854 U.S. Darien Exploring Expedition was an ambitious undertaking filled with great risk. There was also trememdous economic considerations involved, with both the United Kingdom and France having declared intentions to march into the Darian with their own joint expedition in early 1854. Fortunately, Lieutanent Strain's instincts were outstanding and the quality of the American survival skills were impressive. Nevertheless, it was a painful and deadly race into the jungle.
Strain's leadership was crucial...especially when the maps they went into the jungle with proved faulty. As commander of the men Strain worked hard, used sensible planning and employed strong group dynamics to survive. Ultimately, Strain, Frederick Avery (a New York City "Pioneer" hired in Cartegena), and seamen James Goldman and Henry Wilson were the advance party that barely averted death by starvation and disease to make it to the Pacific outlet on March 9, 1854.
Patriotism played a large role in surviving. Afterwards, the men stated they looked upon the service as perhaps the most important that they ever rendered to the country. Although there were some critics the expedition primarily returned home as heroes having proved conclusively that "no open doors to the seas," existed in the Isthmus. This book is well-written and a great read. Highly Recommended.
Bert Ruiz
Rating:
Summary: A Skinny Land
Review: This catchy little history book shows us how deceptively brutal the Panamanian isthmus can really be. Of course, long before the actual Panama Canal was completed, the region had been obsessed over by all types of explorers and speculators wanting to create the ultimate shortcut for world travel. This book focuses on the 1854 exploratory mission of Isaac Strain and his men, in search of a possible route for a canal in the Darien region of the isthmus, which ultimately was not selected for the canal. While Panama may appear to be just a skinny little strip of land, it is actually up to 100 miles across with steep mountains, punishing weather, the worst tropical diseases and insects, rivers that go in all the wrong directions, and the most impenetrable jungles on Earth. Here Balf documents the harrowing ordeal of Strain and his men, as the team ultimately discovered that the Darien region was definitely not suitable for a canal, losing several men along the way under gruesome conditions of starvation and suffering. Some parts of this book are quite terrifying as guys start dropping dead in the worst possible ways. This mostly fascinating vignette is held back a little by Balf's rather thin and wandering writing style, as the characters (particularly Strain) fail to really come to life. Meanwhile, there are two different stories about the rescue of the nearly-dead Strain and his associates after months of being lost in the festering jungle. In the sensationalistic introduction, meant to draw the reader in, Strain is near death when rescued but dramatically fights his way back to lucidity. But later, in the actual historical account, he was certainly in ill-health but still competently commanding his men. This is one of several examples of inconsistency in this otherwise solid, if intellectually skinny, account. An added bonus is the epilogue in which Balf tries to retrace the steps of the Strain party, and finds for himself (and us) how unexpectedly treacherous Panama is even today. [~doomsdayer520~]
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