Blood Orchid; An Unnatural History of America

New York: North Point Press, 2002. First paperback edition. Paperback. NEW. 298pp. Octavo [21 cm] Illustrated wraps. "In this ground-shaking, breathtaking cri de coeur, Bowden digs with love-driven fury for the roots of our brutal history in this once-brace New World. The figures he casts before us - from Pancho Villa to a modern-day drug lord, from General Sherman to a skid-row Sioux named Robert Sundance - trace a story not so much of rapaciousness but of fear and loathing. Bowden twines it with the natural history of the hammer orchid, a carnivore whose deceptive delicacy comes to stand for the terror and hypocrisy that have perverted our love of the land, its peoples, and our very natures." - back cover.