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Demonstrating the drive that would later serve him well in his explorations, Bingham fulfilled the requirements for his graduate degree in a single academic year, all while giving a series of lectures on Hawaii and managing to cut something of a figure on the social circuit. The San Francisco Chronicle noted his attendance at a private dinner dance, entertaining “a merry group of this season’s debutantes.” He was, perhaps, a young man in too great a hurry; one grandson noted later that in writing his thesis, Bingham had “copied a number of long passages without the use of quotation marks.” By the fall of 1900, Bingham was in Cambridge pursuing a PhD in history at Harvard. He and Alfreda were married at the Mitchell home in New London on November 20, in a ceremony presided over by Yale’s former president.

At Harvard, Bingham had chosen to specialize in a new, but potentially important, field of study—South American history. For his PhD dissertation topic, Bingham wrote about the Scots Darien Colony. This ill-fated settlement had been an attempt by Scottish explorers at the end of the seventeenth century to establish a trading beachhead in what is now Panama. Unfortunately, they chose an especially inhospitable spot of jungle, known today as the Darién Gap, which still remains among the least developed areas in the Western Hemisphere. Bingham received his doctorate (and a $10,000 gift from the Mitchells) in 1905. His greatest hope was for a Yale appointment,” one son remembered. Bingham repeatedly called on the university’s president, Arthur Twining Hadley, to see if there was anything he could do for him. There wasn’t. Harvard showed no interest in offering him a teaching position, either.

Unexpectedly, Bingham received an inquiry from Woodrow Wilson—yes, that Woodrow Wilson—who was then building his reputation as a brainy, liberal university president at Princeton. Would Bingham consider a position as a “preceptor”—one of Wilson’s energetic young faculty leading innovative small discussion groups—teaching history and politics? After seeking permission from his in-laws, who had purchased and furnished a Cambridge mansion for the newlyweds, Bingham accepted the three-year assignment.

Princeton was not a good fit. Bingham struggled to stay on top of his course load. He squabbled with Wilson over special treatment that the president wanted for the son of a wealthy alum. An attack of appendicitis provided Bingham with an excuse to request a year’s leave of absence, supposedly to convalesce. Having recently turned thirty, he was more concerned with thinking about his future. As it turned out, both he and Wilson were contemplating major life changes. Wilson was considering a move into politics; Bingham was looking for adventure. Seven years later, under very different circumstances, they would be two of the most famous men in America.

SIX

The Call of the Wild

New York City

Some humans are born great and others achieve greatness, but contrary to what Tony Robbins might tell you, most of us are perfectly content to have slightly-above-averageness thrust upon us. After rushing through my first couple of years in New York on a frantic sprint from extra-innings adolescence to sobering adult responsibility, I spent the next decade on a leisurely slide toward middle age. Aurita became a veterinarian. Alex was joined by two little brothers, Lucas and Magnus. We bought a house in the suburbs, a gas grill, a Volvo wagon. Aurita and the boys and I traveled to Peru almost yearly, but these trips were like my coworkers’ weekend visits to Connecticut to see their in-laws. Between the lunches and dinners and cocktail parties at which we saw various cousins and uncles and aunts and close family friends who weren’t blood relatives—as far as I could tell—but were called uncles and aunts, we rarely left the city limits of Lima.

My passport probably held some sort of U.S. record for most entry stamps to Peru without managing to visit Machu