Matthiessen reveals a complex historical struggle between American Indians and the U.S. government and how it influenced the events that lead to the imprisonment of Leonard Peltier.

For twenty thousand miles, Peter Matthiessen crisscrossed the South American wilderness, traveling from the Amazonian rain forests to Machu Picchu high in the Andes, down to the edge of the world at Tierra del Fuego and back. In the c...