VA 10, Ep. 9 GOLD ; An Amazon Fever, a Parable for Humanity’s Future

Sebastiáo Salgado's GOLD is a book about obsession: "What is it about a dull yellow metal that drives men to abandon their homes, sell their belongings, and cross a continent in order to risk life, limb and sanity for a dream?" Serra Pelada-Bald Mountain, in Brazil's Pará State, was an open-air mine for 10 years, but the relevance of this collection is timeless. GOLD is a major document of modern history and an extraordinary photographic portfolio. Its publication also marked a period of international recognition for Salgado, and offered black and white photography, a renaissance of sorts. This story is also a parable which can offer us a timeless mirror image through which to analyze humanity's fast profit and maximum effort formulas of exploitation. El Dorado definitely seems to be a legend that humanity refuses to outgrow; and the price of such schemes just keeps becoming steeper.