The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon Allusions and Cultural References

When authors give shout outs to other great works, people, and events, it's usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.

Literary and Philosophical References

  • Arthur Conan Doyle (Preface.6) (1.3) (3.1) (4.30) (10.6) (17.21)
  • William Shakespeare, including Othello (1.8) (4.22)
  • Charles Dickens (1.19)
  • Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust (2.8)
  • Ernest Hemingway (2.12) (18.25)
  • Mark Twain (4.12)
  • William Butler Yeats (4.28)
  • Alfred, Lord Tennyson (4.30)
  • Sigmund Freud (4.30)
  • Charles Darwin (4.30) (12.13) (14.19)
  • Sir Henry Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines (4.35)
  • E. M. Forster (4.35)
  • Joseph Conrad (4.40)
  • Rudyard Kipling, "The Explorer" (8.3) (8.12)
  • Lewis Carroll (17.39)
  • Ian Fleming (22.50)
  • Homer, The Odyssey (22.57)
  • Graham Green (24.12)

Historical References

  • Thomas Hobbes (Preface.5)
  • Christopher Columbus (Preface.6) (8.15)
  • David Livingstone (1.2) (4.34) (22.10)
  • Sir Walter Raleigh (1.8) (15.12)
  • Amelia Earhart (2.12)
  • Richard Francis Burton (4.34)
  • Giacomo Puccini (8.15)
  • Ernest Shackleton (Chapter 12) (17.15)
  • Judas (12.42)
  • Theodore Roosevelt (12.45) (14.35) (22.11)
  • Winston Churchill (14.21) (17.8)
  • Friedrich Nietzsche (14.25)
  • Hernán Cortés (15.4)
  • World War I (17.2)
  • Woodrow Wilson (17.45)
  • John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (18.33)
  • Henry Morton Stanley (22.10)

Pop Culture References

  • 60 Minutes (3.18)
  • James Bond (7.17)
  • Babe Ruth (17.45)
  • Clark Gable (18.2)
  • Mary Pickford (18.2)
  • Lawrence of Arabia (18.3)
  • Road to Zanzibar with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope (21.48)
  • Adventures of Tintin (21.48)
  • Indiana Jones and the Seven Veils (21.50)