The most authoritative, important book on Stonehenge to date.
Renowned archaeologist Pearson (Archaeology/University College London; From Machair to Mountains, 2012, etc.) presents the findings of the most ambitious and scientifically informed investigation of Stonehenge thus far.
Majestic, enigmatic and captivating, the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge is a mystery archaeologists have been struggling to solve for more than 300 years. Here, the author unveils the critical new discoveries made during the massive investigation he oversaw from 2003 to 2009: the Stonehenge Riverside Project. Forty-five excavations within the 6,500-acre Stonehenge World Heritage site revealed Stonehenge to be not just a monument that exists in isolation, but one of many monuments constructed within an ancient sacred landscape. From a massive Neolithic avenue connecting the neighboring wood henge Durrington Walls to the River Avon, to the discovery of 63 ancient cremation burials at Stonehenge, Pearson presents new evidence that indisputably links Stonehenge to a network of similar cremation monuments and ancient cemeteries across greater Britain. The project has also provided a tantalizing glimpse into the lives and minds of Britain’s prehistoric people. Lipid analysis of animal bones discovered at Durrington indicates that feasting took place there on a grand scale during midsummer and midwinter. Along with animal bones in large quantities, an entire Neolithic settlement was unearthed there as well, proving that while Stonehenge was a place that honored the dead, Durrington was a place of celebration for the living. Filled with maps, drawings, photographs and diagrams, the book details the group’s findings in a well-organized, absorbing manner. While the tone is decidedly academic, Pearson’s style is accessible enough—and the information discussed provocative enough—to make this book required reading for serious Anglophiles, students of archaeology and anthropologists alike.
The most authoritative, important book on Stonehenge to date.Pub Date: June 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61519-079-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: The Experiment
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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