Throughout the 1980s, a combination of widespread poverty and favorable gold prices encouraged hoards of wildcat miners to penetrate some of the Amazon's rainforest headwaters in search of new deposits. Now, hundreds of makeshift camps threaten the future of both the rainforest and the indigenous people who inhabit it. This book explains how gold fever came to grip the Amazon and considers the changes it has brought to the region. It contains a vivid account of the violent clash between forty thousand miners and the Yanamami Indians in the state of Roraima, as well as thoroughly researched arguments that explore the perspectives of the farmers, ranchers, natives, and others involved in this historic moment.