<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: a great read
Review: 15 June 2003Tom Koppel's new book, Lost World, is a wonderful narrative but packed with treasures of information as well. It is his personal journey with very talented and resourceful archaeologists and their colleagues. At the same time it is a credible account of their discoveries, and sometimes disappointments. Setting the record right with respect to the western coastal settlement is only one of his accomplishments. Also he has performed a service that is beyond measure organizing into a single volume a myriad of important facts from diverse sources. Having read many of the scientific and scholarly works relating to this subject, I must state that none has been as interesting, unbiased, forthright, unembellished and evenhanded as has Tom Koppel's book. Louis C. Sheppard, Ph.D., D.I.C.
Rating:
Summary: solid info in detective-novel form
Review: An avid, but often "challenged" reader of science, philosophy, and culture, I value clear writing above all things. Tom Koppel's explanations of radiocarbon dating, and of all the other methods of modern archaeology, were so step-by-step and lucid that even I, techno-dummy, understood them PAINLESSLY, without my customary cerebral seize-up. On top of that, without losing any accuracy or "rigor," Koppel weaves the story like a mystery writer, seasoning necessarily slower passages with hints at just-around-the-bend revelations. And he recaps just enough to keep us straight with the story, not enough to annoy. With documentary flair reminiscent of John McPhee's work, the guy gives the facts AND the color, always in historical perspective. I learned and enjoyed, which is all I ask of a book. Thus..... five stars.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling Read . . . Even If You're Not a Science Geek
Review: LOST WORLD is a great book. It ranks right up there with anything that Krackauer has done. Koppel's writing is brisk and dramatic, an intelligent page turner. I'm an ecclectic reader and an armchair adventurer at best, but I was immediately captivated by these stories of extreme science. Three cheers for Koppel. Five stars for LOST WORLD!
Rating:
Summary: solid info in detective-novel form
Review: LOST WORLD is a great read. It ranks right up there with anything that Krackauer has done. Koppel's writing is brisk and dramatic, an intelligent page turner. I'm an ecclectic reader and an armchair adventurer at best, but I was immediately captivated by these stories of extreme science. Three cheers for Koppel. And five stars for LOST WORLD!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but unnecessarily wordy
Review: This book is well written and the ideas presented are well developed and clear. The descriptions of the excavations and the dating of artifacts are exciting. The only shortcoming which discouraged me from giving the book five stars is the fact that there's a lot of seemingly unnecessary and unrelated text that detracts from the main theme and flow of ideas in the book, e.g., the Baron of beef au jus incident; I fully agree with the Publishers Weekly's review on this issue. Otherwise, the book is informative in presenting an alternative view, and related evidence, as to the mechanics of how the New World was populated by humans.
Rating:
Summary: Hands-On Paradigm Shifting
Review: This book quite effectively debunks the prevailing theories about the earliest arrival of humans in the Americas. According to that body of knowledge, late in the last ice age people from Asia walked across the Beringia land bridge, which was formed by lowered sea levels, into Alaska and then south through Canada via a supposed corridor between thousands of miles of glaciers. Here Tom Koppel shows that the evidence for that old paradigm is shaky and conjectural at best. Instead, in recent years evidence has grown showing that a few thousand years previously, the same lowered sea levels allowed seafaring peoples to colonize the Americas by hopping along islands and coastlines around the rim of the Northern Pacific. This phenomenon was previously unknown because the relevant coastal areas are now under water, since sea level rose again at the end of the ice age.
Koppel presents both the latest scientific evidence of such coastal migrations of ancient peoples, and also offers plenty of firsthand reporting of the archeologists, anthropologists, and geologists who are doing groundbreaking work in the field, mostly along the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska. Koppel's writing is a bit repetitive and he has a hard time avoiding big speculations, while he can't quite convince the reader of the all-encompassing dominance of these new theories as much as he himself has been convinced. However, after reading this book you will have good reason to place credence in the increasingly compelling evidence of coastal migrations by ancient Americans, and declare the predominant "ice corridor" thesis to be just a tired old paradigm that is in real danger of being overthrown. [~doomsdayer520~]
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but unnecessarily wordy
Review: Tom Koppel's new book, Lost World, is a wonderful narrative but packed with treasures of information as well. It is his personal journey with very talented and resourceful archaeologists and their colleagues. At the same time it is a credible account of their discoveries, and sometimes disappointments. Setting the record right with respect to the western coastal settlement is only one of his accomplishments. Also he has performed a service that is beyond measure organizing into a single volume a myriad of important facts from diverse sources. Having read many of the scientific and scholarly works relating to this subject, I must state that none has been as interesting, unbiased, forthright, unembellished and evenhanded as has Tom Koppel`s book. Louis C. Sheppard, Ph.D., D.I.C.
Rating:
Summary: Lost World
Review: Tom Koppel's new book, Lost World, is a wonderful narrative but packed with treasures of information as well. It is his personal journey with very talented and resourceful archaeologists and their colleagues. At the same time it is a credible account of their discoveries, and sometimes disappointments. Setting the record right with respect to the western coastal settlement is only one of his accomplishments. Also he has performed a service that is beyond measure organizing into a single volume a myriad of important facts from diverse sources. Having read many of the scientific and scholarly works relating to this subject, I must state that none has been as interesting, unbiased, forthright, unembellished and evenhanded as has Tom Koppel's book. Louis C. Sheppard, Ph.D., D.I.C.
<< 1 >>
| 
