By Region Books

Normalmente la atención de los lectores se concentra en la historia de Egipto en época faraónica. En las monografías más usuales se limitan a unas pocas páginas que ofrecen un resumen. Sin embargo, la prehistoria de Egipto es tan interesante, si no más, que los periodos que siguieron. Esta obra tiene la gran virtud de estar escrita por un especialista, que ha sintetizado con gran acierto, todo lo que sabemos sobre esta época. También ha incluido los últimos descubrimientos arqueológicos. Es ante todo un libro de divulgación, muy recomendable para todos aquellos que quieran iniciarse en el tema. Se deben mencionar también las magnificas ilustraciones, aunque se echa de menos que algunas de ellas no sean en color, asi como mapas más precisos.

Ok, so before I picked this book up I didn't even know what Jomon-pottery was, and while I read this book I had to make frequent reference to wikipedia. However, I really did learn a lot about the archaeology of Korea while I read it.

I guess due to the nature of the evidence, pottery was covered in special depth, and other kinds of artifacts were related to the pottery. I especially appreciated the cautious speculations about religion in stone-age and bronze-age Korea; that's why I read the book. Now, when I visit a museum here in Korea, even if I can't understand the labels, I know what I'm looking at pretty well: that's another big bonus for me.

It's a few years old now. I think that genetic work probably sheds some light on the migrations into the peninsula, and there must've been a lot of archaeological research since this book has been written. Soon, I hope, North Korea will open up a bit and more research will go on there; the sites there are probably very interesting. I hope a more updated version comes out sometime soon.

The bibliography was also very helpful to me.

I have no idea what a well-informed scholar would make of this book, however; and when I read reviews by people who don't know about things that I know about, I can tell...

UPDATE: I've now discovered Gina L. Barnes' "The Rise of Civilization in East Asia: The Archaeology of China, Korea and Japan." I highly recommend it. It's easier to read, somehow inherently more interesting, and the regional coverage adds a lot of useful context. It spans a greater time period with less detail, but its fascinating insights really do make up for the loss of detail. Unless for some reason you are definitely interested in Nelson's book, I recommend Barnes.

A comprehensive book, Thou might be a little daunting to beginners due to the complexities of the terminology used in the African context.

This book was required for by Daughters studies at University of Toronto.

I love reading books about archaeology becuase, I myself being one, they are so full of history and methods of being a good archaeologist. So when I saw this book with all it's descriptions and wonder pictures, I knew I had to buy it. It talked about how archaeoloists excavate and where they do it. It is a wonderful book that is very interesting and fun to read.

Let me first make it clear that I know the author of this book personally. In fact, I am able to write this review only because Mr. Evans has allowed me to read the manuscript prior to the release date. I make no promise that I can be wholly unbiased, as I consider Ray to be a good friend. I can only hope to separate my opinion of this book from my respect and admiration for it's author.

I knew many of these stories before reading the book, as I have many times chatted with Ray about his experiences as a child evacuee during the Second World War. Having also spent a large part of my childhood in Europe, listening to my grandmother and grandfather tell fascinating stories of life during and after the war, I was intrigued at the idea of reading this story the moment that Ray told me he had begun writing it.

The story told in "Before the Last All Clear" is intrinsically an emotional one, as the victims here are children, forced to evacuate their homes and go live with strangers to avoid the devastation of the Nazi bombing. However, the author never seems to fall prey to the temptation of manipulating the reader into feeling pity. To his credit, he never seems to ask the reader to feel anything at all. Perhaps he does this unintentionally, or perhaps because he knows that the story is powerful enough to stand on it's own without embellishment. Whatever his intention, I found myself in tears while reading it. More than once, in fact.

In what I believe to be a tip of the cap to the author's working-class Liverpool upbringing, the storytelling here is simple and straightforward. Descriptions are not forced that the reader might risk losing faith in the author to tell the truth about what happened to him as an evacuee. The awful, cataclysmic bombing of his home city of Liverpool is seen through the eyes of a young, frightened child. This is not an "apocalyptic event". It's just "scary".

Because then, as now, no truly reliable method existed to see inside the human heart, and because of the sheer size of the evacuation, some children were sent to live with people who were less than happy to have them as houseguests. Some lived in filthy conditions. Some were underfed. Others were lucky enough to be placed in loving homes and treated as members of the family. All were far away from home.

While the fathers of their nation fought the Battle of Britain, refusing to surrender at every turn, many of their children fought battles of their own. They fought loneliness, hunger and fear. They were the unsung victims of this horrendous conflict, coping with the danger of unexploded bombs, the fear of Nazi parachutes found nearby, and the empty feeling of abandonment.

Ray speaks of these events today with typical British understatement. He remembers the details of his travails as if they had happened only months ago. In truth, he was an evacuee more than 60 years ago. He remembers almost without rancor the people who mistreated him, and with great affection those who were kind. He remembers saying goodbye to the people he loved, six years old and overwhelmed with emotion. And he remembers feeling wanted and accepted into a family.

Ray's goal in writing this book was simply to tell his story. He makes no attempt to pass moral judgment on the horrors of war. This is not an indictment of the "evil that men do". It is the story of a child, far from home, away from his family, surviving, even thriving. And the inherent message there is clear, isn't it?

In the end, "Before the Last All Clear" is the simple story of a young boy placed in an impossibly complex situation. It moves quickly and smoothly. It is well written and very moving. But most importantly, it is true. It is horribly, wonderfully, true.

This book is a must have for students interested in disease, trauma, markers of occupational stress, and dental anthropology, to name a few. The eleven chapters in this book combine into an extraordinary synthesis of not only the effects that the transition to agriculture had on health and behavior, but also the rich wealth of information that bioarchaeological analyses can add to studies of past peoples. This book is well-written and extremely readable. I espcially enjoyed the discussions of porotic hyperostosis and skeletal trauma from interpersonal conflict. Although indirectly discussed in a few chapters, I would have liked a chapter devoted to the change in mortuary practices during the transition to agriculture. This is merely a comment--not a criticism. I highly recommend this book!

I really liked this book! It gives kids a great view at Disney World, and will help you plan your trip a lot! There are a lot of places in this book that will let you plan out your trip, and a section for autographs, which I couldn't find in other books. I would read it!! :-

THIS BOOK SHOULD HAVE BEEN READ BY EVERY BLACK EXPLORER IN U S OF A SO THEY KNOW JUST HOW GREAT THIS MAN WAS.

Earle presents historical stories for several peoples who were in Bronze Ages at different periods. For each, he weaves together anthropology, sociology, environmental impact, and economics. For anyone who finds it difficult to imagine how there could have been "economics" prior to the Age of Industrialization, this is a very helpful book.
I used this book when teaching a course on Economic History, precisely because I wanted my students to appreciate what economics means and how it exists in every society, even primative ones. Earle's accounts of Bronze Age Hawaiian chiefdoms or primitive Danish Bronze Age communities, etc. demonstrated this perfectly while making it fun at the same time. (In how many Economics courses will you study about indicators of economic status and feather capes?)
Anyone who thinks that he or she is interested in anthropology or sociology, but nothing so dry as economics, need only pick up Earle's book, to see how much fun economics reading CAN be.
This is a very unique book that satisfies a niche in the field of economics exceedingly well.