Helpful votes received on reviews:
97% (30 of 31)
Location: MI United States
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Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
This is fast-paced summer trash. It has no redeeming social value and not much literary finesse, but, oh, what a pastiche of endless excitement. Any resemblance to real archaeology is accidentally from a textbook on Incan lore. Instead, Rollins' method is pastiche: here a bit copped from Haggard, Tolkien (Gollum), King, or Raiders, there another from Da Vinci, Poe, Drexler, or CSI; and of course, GOLD. He only missed something extra-terrestrial (oops, no he didn't). Rollins' structure is that of The Perils of Pauline, one cliffhanging episode after another, flashing between two interwoven tales and sets of characters, the professor in his lab with his love, and his graduate students… Read more
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Other reviews tell you accurately what this book is about. If you're looking for a spy, chase, suspense, thriller, or murder account, this isn't it, despite the flashy cover. Instead, this is primarily an unabashedly pro-American history report on a World War I sidelight, intended for those interested in the development of American intelligence services. If you are into Maya archaeology, this book will remind you that Morley (author of the pioneering: The Ancient Maya, 1946) was a very impressive hyperactive fellow. For what it is-a dry academic piece with flashes of patriotism-this is an informative book. It substantially expands on a two-year episode in the fuller picture of Morley's… Read more
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This book is a semi-popular overview of the material underpinnings of the ancient Roman state. But you might say, If it just sets forth resources, manufactures, transport, and trade, how is that different from before and after the Roman Empire, so how does that explain Roman success? Well, Greene adds changes in the climate cycle, which was most favorable to agriculture and therefore human population at the imperial peak. Besides, Greene is not (re)writing an economic history or explanation of Rome-although he does admire what Fernand Braudel accomplished for pre-modern Europe-but rather of archaeology's direct contribution to various fundamental, if overlooked, corners of that enterprise… Read more
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