**Lost Countries of South America is an adventurous, ambitious and dazzlingly original study of South America’s past that bridges travel writing, history and rich literary narrative.**Taking ten supposedly vanished and forgotten South American nations as his waymarks, journalist Laurence Blair travels to each in turn – an intrepid journey on foot and horseback, railway and river – delving into their unexpected histories and long, controversial afterlives. From an unbowed Inca enclave in the mountains and sprawling ancient city-states in the Amazon rainforest, via a mighty Patagonian realm that humbled a global superpower, to an African guerrilla nation that fought slavery in colonial Brazil for a century, and the Black revolutionaries who marched over the Andes to overthrow an empire and forge a united continent, Blair brings to the fore rarely-told stories of coexistence, rebellion and resistance. Drawing on rich archival sources, ground-breaking recent scholarship, and stunning archaeological findings – as well as encounters with drug lords, scholars, rebels, environmentalists, migrants, Indigenous leaders and urban activists – LOST COUNTRIES weaves a compelling narrative that speaks to universal themes of memory and national identity, placing South America at the centre of the history of the world – and its future.