Discoveries: Megaliths (Discoveries)

Rating:
Summary: Megaliths
Review: For anyone who already has a background in prehistory, this is probably a little too general. For someone just learning about the subject, it would be a good book to start with as it is heavily illustrated, covers the history of and personalities involved in the study of these early stone structures, and includes a very nice bibliography of the subject. The latter includes several, in fact mostly, books and articles in French which would require at least a reading knowledge of that language, although this volume is itself in English.

Rating:
Summary: Megaliths
Review: For anyone who already has a background in prehistory, this is probably a little too general. For someone just learning about the subject, it would be a good book to start with as it is heavily illustrated, covers the history of and personalities involved in the study of these early stone structures, and includes a very nice bibliography of the subject. The latter includes several, in fact mostly, books and articles in French which would require at least a reading knowledge of that language, although this volume is itself in English.

Rating:
Summary: A general overview of the subject
Review: This Discoveries volume, like the rest, was written with the beginner audience in mind, and for that audience it may well fulfill its goal. However, for a 176-page book it offers an amazingly obvious lack of information, perhaps because there are simply far too many graphics which do not support the text but merely illustrate the megaliths in question from various vantage points. There is little to be found on the subject of the stones' religious background, as well as anything about the culture of the people who erected them. At best, this book may be useful in acquiring the basic knowledge of the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Has an Incredible Amount of Information
Review: To me, the graphics accompanying the text convey an incredible amount of information. I do not agree that this book doesn't include info about the religious background of these megaliths.

If the book has a weakness it is that it focuses on the French sites. The author is a Frenchman and he favors what he knows the most about, I guess. I would say that half of the sites here are French. And there is no mention that I see of Baalbek or a stone circle discovered in the Golan Heights.

Rating:
Summary: Has an Incredible Amount of Information
Review: To me, the graphics accompanying the text convey an incredible amount of information. I do not agree that this book doesn't include info about the religious background of these megaliths.

If the book has a weakness it is that it focuses on the French sites. The author is a Frenchman and he favors what he knows the most about, I guess. I would say that half of the sites here are French. And there is no mention that I see of Baalbek or a stone circle discovered in the Golan Heights.