Euclides da Cunha concerns with environment, political economy, and social justice place him well within the ambit of what we toady call political ecology. While there is always a danger that today’s intellectual “school” is yesterday’s fad, the Political Ecology approach is showing great durability. Da Cunha’s Amazon work is especially important in this regard with its emphasis on environmental analysis, social history, social relations of production, large scale analysis and their impacts on environment clearly show him as an important precursor in his interests to those of current political ecology. This article reviews his Amazon oeuvre in this light.