General Books - Page 12

Ancient Mexico and Central America: Archaeology and Culture History, Second Edition

Susan Toby Evans

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Editorial Review:

Winner of the 2005 Society for American Archaeology Book Award.

This authoritative book explores every aspect of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, from Paleo-Indian times to the sixteenth century. It provides overviews of the best-known regional cultures, such as those of the Olmecs, Maya, Zapotecs, and Aztecs, as well as balanced coverage of Mesoamerica as a whole.

The book covers every major site, from La Venta and Monte Albán to Teotihuacan, Palenque, and Tenochtitlan. It includes detailed discussion of major cultural themes, such as the ball game, and is lavishly illustrated with photographs, drawings, and maps. It has now been thoroughly updated to include new interpretations and recent discoveries. 459 illustrations, 80 in color.

Primitive Technology II

Amazon Price: $16.49 List Price: $24.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Gibbs Smith, Publisher Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $15.53

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Highly Recommended by a Paleotechnologist!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 18 people found this review helpful.

This book together with the first book: A Book of Earth Skills from the same author, will show you nearly everything you need to know on primitive technology.
Buy the " Naked into the Wilderness" books written by the McPhersons as well and your library on the subject is complete.
No better books available then these four!!

Editorial Review:

The Stone Age is the common denominator of mankind, and through experimental archeology—the relearning and replication of ancient skills—we take a step of discovery and understanding into this rich past. In this collection, drawn from the pages of the Bulletin of Primitive Technology, learn to create tools to fabricate more complex technologies; master the arts of the bow and arrow; build a shelter or fashion clothing from fibers or buckskin.

Primitive Technology II: Ancestral Skills provides the guide to rediscovery of the skills and crafts that bind us all into this great human family.

David Wescott is author of Camping in the Old Style and editor of Primitive Technology: A Book of Earth Skills. Formerly education director for the Boulder Outdoor School, he has been a leading figure in wilderness education for more than thirty years. He lives with his wife in Rexburg, Idaho.

Worlds Before Our Own

Brad, Steiger

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Straight Forward Summany of the Facts 4 out of 5 stars.
13 of 14 people found this review helpful.

This little book is truly a remarkable find. Presented in a clear and lucid style, Mr. Steiger presents information concerning anomalous archeological finds without the hyperbole usually associated with this type of material.

A great deal of information is provided in a compact format. The book is only a total of 224 pages long and is a reprint by Anomalist Books of the book, which was originally published over 30 years ago. It would be nice to have an update of the information provided - has any new information turned up or has anyone done first hand research of any of the sites mentioned? For example, early in the book the author mentions that concrete blocks, as well as a wall of these blocks, were found in a seam of coal in Oklahoma in 1928. Due to a tunnel collapse, this section of the mine was immediately closed thereafter. It would be interesting to follow-up on this report by first hand reporting of the site in question.

Overall, the book is worth the money and provides a very nice overview of this topic.

Editorial Review:

Twenty-two years before Technology of the Gods... Seventeen years before Fingerprints of the Gods... Fifteen years before Forbidden Archaeology... ...there was Worlds Before Our Own, Brad Steiger's groundbreaking argument for the existence of a global prehistoric civilization. The evidence Steiger had amassed for such a claim was based primarily upon finds of "erratics" -- mysterious "man-made" artifacts found in the deepest, most primordial geological strata. In the past couple of decades the concepts first presented in Worlds Before Our Own have garnered tremendous critical and popular support. This is the book that started it all.

Titanic : An Illustrated History

Don Lynch

By: Hodder & Stoughton (madison) Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $2.30

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 45 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Best book available on the Titanic 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I have to agree with the previous review posted this is probably the best book ever published on the tragic Titanic. It is a beautifully illustrated history of the tragic liner from conception to her well documented demise and discovery in 1985. Ken Marshall's paintings bring the grand dame to life and also help to put into perspective the wreck as she was in 1994 when the book was first published. It is a must have for any Titanic enthusiase even if it is slightly outdated now.

A Great Book on the Titanic 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

"Titanic An Illustrated History" is an excellent title for anyone who wants to know more about the Titanic from building the ship to the investigations into the sinking.

The book is around 225 pages, has numerous photographs and colorful illustrations, and contains around 12 chapters and focuses on the following main areas:

1. Inception and building the ship.
2. The maiden voyage and details of the sinking.
3. Evacuating the boat.
4. Rescue efforts and memorial services.
5. Investigations into the sinking.
6. Discovery the Titanic on the ocean floor several years later.
7. Some of the Titanic artifacts found during the discovery.

The narrative was smooth throughout the book and was very enjoyable to read. The book also served to dispel myths presented in the latest Titanic movie from Hollywood (1997?) that starred Leonard DiCaprio and others. In particular, while people of different social classes were pitted against one another in the struggle for survival in the movie, the book was full of examples of people who willingly sacrificed their lives so that others may live. While the movie was okay, Hollywood did seem to twist some of the facts. Thankfully, the book was more accurate.

Read and enjoy this great account of an unfortunate episode in maritime history. Recommended.

The Search For Ancient Egypt

Jean Vercoutter

Amazon Price: $10.36 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harry N. Abrams Amazon Marketplace: 78 new & used starting at $0.40

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

An excellent source of pictures & facts on Egypt 5 out of 5 stars.
26 of 27 people found this review helpful.

This is a beautifully done book that includes many photographs and illustrations as well as documents pertaining to the history of Egypt as well as the history of Egyptology. Details the historic findings of tombs and relics, illustrations of what things looked like prior to the pillaging that abounded in earlier centuries. A joy to look at and to read and full of great information.

Travelog of Ancient Egypt's modern discovery 4 out of 5 stars.
15 of 15 people found this review helpful.

This book is not really about Ancient Egypt. It is, as its title suggests, a book about the discovery of Egypt by modern Europeans and research on the civilization through the 1980s. In a lot of ways it reminds me of a National Geographic issue which isn't bad it just isn't highly technical or academic but geared toward a general audience. If it is judged with this audience in mind, it rates as an excellent book. For anyone more serious, it may be amusing and interesting and certainly a nice change in that it attempts to discuss fairly recent research.

Editorial Review:

A gripping, action-filled account of the search for an ancient civilization introduces the colorful cast of explorers, adventurers, and archaeologists who uncovered the long-buried secrets and treasures of ancient Egypt. Original.

Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind's First Three Million Years (Casebooks in Criticism)

Robert J. Wenke, Deborah I. Olszewski

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Who are we? How did the world become what it is today? What paths did humanity traverse along the way?
Patterns in Prehistory, Fifth Edition, is a comprehensive and engaging survey of humanity's past three million years. It brings together theories and archaeological examples to pose questions about who we are and the means by which humanity evolved into what it is today.
Ideal for introductory courses in world prehistory and origins of complex societies, Patterns in Prehistory, Fifth Edition, offers a unified and thematic approach to the four great transformations--or patterns--that characterize humanity's past: the origins and evolution of culture; the origins of modern humans and human behaviors; the origins of agriculture; and the origins of complex societies, civilizations, and pre-industrial states. Integrating theoretical approaches with archaeological data from the Middle East, Mesoamerica, North and South America, Egypt, China, the Indus Valley, and temperate Europe, Patterns in Prehistory, Fifth Edition, reveals how archaeologists decipher the past. It demonstrates how theory and method are combined to derive interpretations and also considers how interpretations evolve as a result of accumulating data, technological advances in recording and analyzing data sets, and newer theoretical perspectives.
This new edition of Patterns in Prehistory provides:
* Fresh insights with the addition of coauthor Deborah Olszewski, who has carefully reviewed and revamped the material with an eye toward making the text clearly understandable to today's students
* Updated discussions throughout, including expanded information on post-processual archaeology, current methodologies, and technological advances
* Approximately 250 illustrations and maps, more than half of which are new to this edition
* Groundbreaking research on new discoveries of hominin fossils, genetic research, prehistoric migrations, the peopling of the Americas, and theories of the origins of agriculture and the origins of complex societies
* Timelines for all relevant chapters as well as an overarching timeline for the entire book to help students place events in context
* Extensively updated chapter bibliographies and chapter endnotes

Discoveries: Petra: Lost City of the Ancient World (Discoveries (Abrams))

Christian Auge, Jean-Marie Dentzer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Petra 5 out of 5 stars.
35 of 39 people found this review helpful.

This book has been done in a style similar to a National Geographic magazine. It combines a history of the city and its excavations with exquisite photographs and drawings. This book was well researched and does an excellent job describing the ancient city which was carved entirely out of the cliffs which make Petra unique. I reccomend this book to anyone who has an interest in the history of the Fertile Crescent, Jordan, archaelogy, or the 7 wonders of the ancient world (This book asserts that Petra is considered to be an eighth wonder).

Perfect travel companion... 5 out of 5 stars.
25 of 25 people found this review helpful.

Even though it lacks the details of bigger books such as Udi Levy's "The Lost Civilization of Petra" (a hardback book), it doesn't mean it lacks details altogether! I found this book to be a great source of information while I was travelling since it is small and stocked full of info on Petra, the Nabateans, and more.

This book is loaded with colorful well-photographed pictures and lithographs, and lively-written text which makes reading it a breeze. I fit this book in my back pocket while in Petra and pulled it out to get details on things like the great cisterns and the waterway through the main siq. The section at the end of the book on modern plans to try and preserve Petra's vulnerable sandstone is very interesting... Electophoresis?!?! Wow!

The book wraps up everything with a chronology at the end and a list of Nabataea's kings. A very enjoyable and informative read considering its small size... Big things do come in small packages!

Editorial Review:

This rich narrative history surveys the art, culture, and stunning architecture of the ancient city of Petra, whose hidden monuments are carved out of Jordan's rocky cliffs, and whose rare beauty steadily draws tourists to this remote site in the Arabian desert. 125 illustrations, 108 in full color, 5 x 7"

Reconstructing Human Origins, Second Edition

Glenn C. Conroy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent. Another masterpiece. A must have. 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful.

I have just finished to read the book in a first reading. This second edition of the book is another masterpiece of the Prof. Conroy. The book is updated and it includes all the aspects of the human evolution, from the plio-pleistocene world to our modern origins. Notable the number of figures, schemes, diagrams and tables present in the book. The book is so updated that it includes the recent dwarf species Homo floresiensis.
Any sort of australopithecus and any sort of homo are included. This is a serious book for the one that really wants to learn the human evolution. I currently think it it is the best. If you purchase it you won't repent of it.
See my previous review of the first edition of this book.
A big thanks to Prof. Conroy.

Editorial Review:

This new edition explains how recent advances in radiometric dating, functional morphology, molecular biology, and archaeological inference have changed our modern interpretations of how hominins lived and dispersed across the globe during the last five million years or more. The updating includes ample discussion of the most recent fossil finds.

The Oxford History of the Biblical World

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this impressive volume, leading scholars offer compelling glimpses into the biblical world, the world in which prophets, poets, sages, and historians created one of our most important texts--the Bible.
For more than a century, archaeologists have been unearthing the tombs, temples, texts, and artifacts of the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean world. Using new approaches, contemporary scholars have begun to synthesize this material with the biblical traditions. The Oxford History of the Biblical World incorporates the best of this scholarship, and in chronologically ordered chapters presents the reader with a readable and integrated study of the history, art, architecture, languages, literatures, and religion of biblical Israel and early Judaism and Christianity in their larger cultural contexts. The authors also examine such issues as the roles of women, the tensions between urban and rural settings, royal and kinship social structures, and official and popular religions of the region.
Understanding the biblical world is a vital part of understanding the Bible. Broad, authoritative, and engaging, The Oxford History of the Biblical World will illuminate for any reader the ancient world from which the Bible emerged.

Breaking the Maya Code

Michael D. Coe

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Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Linguistic Detective Tale 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Mayan civilization flourished in Central America for more than a thousand years and at least four million Mayas still live in Guatemala and Mexico and speak Mayan languages. The ruins the Mayas left behind are spectacular -- Tikal in Guatemala, featured in the movie "Star Wars," is perhaps the greatest of them all. However, our knowledge of the Mayas has always been limited because scholars were unable to decipher Mayan writing. In fact, many scholars have denied that the Mayan symbols -- glyphs -- were more than doodlings, calendars, and compilatation of dates.

"Breaking the Maya Code" is not a history of the Maya civilization but rather a history of the scholars who have attempted to unravel the meaning of the enigmatic Mayan glyphs. Coe's premise is that racial discrimination and scholarly politics retarded the decipherment of the glyphs. Amazingly, many scholars of the Maya didn't bother to learn the Mayan language.

The chief villain of the book is Sir Eric Thompson who had a strangle-hold on Mayan studies for many years. It was only with his death in 1975 that a motley group of linguists and amateurs learned to read the glyphs -- and thus demonstrate conclusively that the Mayas possessed a written language. The remarkable individuals who achieved this breakthrough included a Soviet scholar who had never visited Central America, a 12 year old boy, a self-described redneck woman from Tennessee, and a mathematician who began life as a Wisconsin farmboy. The dirt archeologists, "wielders of trowels" in the author's words, were unenthusiastic about the accomplishments of the linguists.

The author paints a picture of the dead hand of academia inhibiting rather than promoting the study of Mayan writing. An archaelogist himself, he personally knows the principal characters in his story and he was a participant in many of the key events that led to a comprehension of Mayan writing. His writing is lively, mostly warm and generous about his colleagues but sometimes critical, and the whole story is told in a connected narrative that reads like a novel, albeit one in which the reader is led through the complex process of how linguists learned to decipher Mayan glyphs.

Smallchief

Editorial Review:

Michael Coe's classic inside story of one of the major intellectual breakthroughs of our time--the last great decoding of an ancient script--has been updated throughout and now includes an epilogue that brings the reader up to date in the fast-changing field of Maya decipherment. Among the more exciting advances to be described are:
* the discovery of the specific Maya language and sophisticated grammar used by the ancient scribes on stone monuments and painted vases;
* archaeological explorations of tombs and buildings of the ancient founders of the great city of Copan, whose very existence had been predicted by epigraphers through glyphic decipherment;
* the realization that many small city-states were dominated by two rival giants, Tikal and Calakmul, through a potent combination of military conquest, diplomacy, and royal marriages.