Rating: 
Summary: A very interesting historical travelogue
Review: David Hatcher Childress' Lost Cities series has proven to be consistently interesting, and Lost Cities and Ancient Mysteries of Africa and Arabia is no exception. Taking the everyman approach to travel writing, Childress' accounts of his travels through Arabia and Egypt are very interesting and insightful, full of both interesting travel advice relevant to the regions he travelled through and accounts of personal experiences that make his stories very interesting to read. He thoroughly covers all of the major and most of the minor historical sites to be found throughout Africa and Arabia, often at great personal risk. It took guts to make the journeys he has made, many of which were in areas very dangerous for Americans, and a talent for writing to make them interesting. I thoroughly recommend this and all of the other Lost Cities series of books to all would-be travelers with an open mind and an interest in the unusual.
Rating: 
Summary: Worthless
Review: How this man has managed to write so many books while knowing nothing about 1) travel and 2) archaeology is a mystery to me. First he shows up in Jordan with no local money on a Friday (you'd think someone passing themselves off as a knowledgeable traveller would have figured out banks in an Arab country are closed on the Muslim sabbath) Then he continues on with a series of quack theories about aliens, and technologically advanced ancient civilizations, and harps that make rocks float. There not even good quack theories, like Hancock or Buval (who, while equally worthless, at least make an attempt to back up their theories) Read something else.
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting read
Review: I picked up this book not realizing that I had already read excerpts from it in another of Childress' books. I was headed for Jordan and was interested in reading up on Petra when I found this book. As I read more, it began to get really interesting. His broad coverage of various theories of ancient civilizations is fascinating, if sometimes hard to believe. But, that being said, there are so many unexplained civilizations out there that, however fanciful the explanations may be, who knows, some may even be correct!! It's an entertaining read, and really causes you to reconsider some very basic historical facts that may turn out to be in error. How DID those guys at the Temple of Ba'al move 2 million pound stones?!? Makes you wonder!!
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting read
Review: I picked up this book not realizing that I had already read excerpts from it in another of Childress' books. I was headed for Jordan and was interested in reading up on Petra when I found this book. As I read more, it began to get really interesting. His broad coverage of various theories of ancient civilizations is fascinating, if sometimes hard to believe. But, that being said, there are so many unexplained civilizations out there that, however fanciful the explanations may be, who knows, some may even be correct!! It's an entertaining read, and really causes you to reconsider some very basic historical facts that may turn out to be in error. How DID those guys at the Temple of Ba'al move 2 million pound stones?!? Makes you wonder!!
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Look into the Lost cities from a travel POV
Review: I think this book is great. I love DHC's writing style and humor. His perspective is refreshing and clever -- a book of discovery as travel is -- new discoveries around every corner!
Rating:
Summary: An early book to challenge the age of the sphinx!
Review: I've read all of Childress's lost cities books, and this is one of my favorites. It is one of the first books to challenge the dogma that the great Sphinx and the Osirion of Egypt are over 10,000 years old. The Lost Cities Series is a fascinating series of books, written with humor, insight, depth and astoning knowledge of the ancient past. --Richard Noone
Rating: 
Summary: Sublimely Goofy Entertainment
Review: Let's face it: this isn't a very good book. Then again, "Godzilla vs. Monster Zero" wasn't a very "good" (if we must assign labels) movie. Childress, a "maverick archaeologist" who seems to spend most of his time floundering around grimly impoverished Third World locales and getting nowhere with evasive women at bars, provides an insanely amusing travelogue of his journeys through the jungles and exotic landscapes of Africa and Arabia, commenting along the way on the unknown Atlantean, Lemurian, and other civilizations that flourished once upon a time and were responsible for the Pyramids, THE MAHABHARATA, and presumably Jimmy Hoffa's and D.B. Cooper's whereabouts. The most insane thing about this book is that a lot of it might be true. So far as I know, we still know very little about the Neolithic era, and the concept of "lost" civilizations would imaginably appeal to many readers depressed at the state of the world (including myself). However, I must agree with the other negative reviewer that Childress offers no convincing evidence to support his theories (and not very much UNconvincing evidence, either). The only sources he uses are hopelessly mossbound Victorian "explorers" (who knows how many African bearers' lives they may have used up to supply this book with fodder for speculation?) who had their own "issues" to deal with. Don't even get me started on the possible cultural-studies implications of this book. That being said, it WAS a lot of fun, and he does occasionally come up with some exciting memories and fantastical theories that NEARLY make up for my having read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Sublimely Goofy Entertainment
Review: Let's face it: this isn't a very good book. Then again, "Godzilla vs. Monster Zero" wasn't a very "good" (if we must assign labels) movie. Childress, a "maverick archaeologist" who seems to spend most of his time floundering around grimly impoverished Third World locales and getting nowhere with evasive women at bars, provides an insanely amusing travelogue of his journeys through the jungles and exotic landscapes of Africa and Arabia, commenting along the way on the unknown Atlantean, Lemurian, and other civilizations that flourished once upon a time and were responsible for the Pyramids, THE MAHABHARATA, and presumably Jimmy Hoffa's and D.B. Cooper's whereabouts. The most insane thing about this book is that a lot of it might be true. So far as I know, we still know very little about the Neolithic era, and the concept of "lost" civilizations would imaginably appeal to many readers depressed at the state of the world (including myself). However, I must agree with the other negative reviewer that Childress offers no convincing evidence to support his theories (and not very much UNconvincing evidence, either). The only sources he uses are hopelessly mossbound Victorian "explorers" (who knows how many African bearers' lives they may have used up to supply this book with fodder for speculation?) who had their own "issues" to deal with. Don't even get me started on the possible cultural-studies implications of this book. That being said, it WAS a lot of fun, and he does occasionally come up with some exciting memories and fantastical theories that NEARLY make up for my having read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of flavor, little facts...
Review: Ok, let's get one thing out of the way. David Childress is not an archeologist. Some people seem to get hung up on this, so let's make that real clear. I always see his books in the "Travel Narrative" section of the bookstore, and that's exactly what they are... great travel narratives. The books has two modes. Mr. Childress' travel stories, and his telling of "wacky" theories of the places he visits. Within the first 25 pages, you have stories of ancient nuclear weapons, flying machines, and continent spanning civilizations that no one has heard of! And he explains that this is the "easiest" way of rationalizing the things he has seen! (Such as, giant blocks of stone that are too big to move, "even by modern engineering"). On the whole, this is a great read if you want some insight into the crazy ideas that exist out there. Childress seems to have a mainline into most of them. His travel writing is pretty good too. One note: the editing is terrible. Spelling and typos all over the place. The typography & layout of the book do leave something to be desired.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of flavor, little facts...
Review: Ok, let's get one thing out of the way. David Childress is not an archeologist. Some people seem to get hung up on this, so let's make that real clear. I always see his books in the "Travel Narrative" section of the bookstore, and that's exactly what they are... great travel narratives. The books has two modes. Mr. Childress' travel stories, and his telling of "wacky" theories of the places he visits. Within the first 25 pages, you have stories of ancient nuclear weapons, flying machines, and continent spanning civilizations that no one has heard of! And he explains that this is the "easiest" way of rationalizing the things he has seen! (Such as, giant blocks of stone that are too big to move, "even by modern engineering"). On the whole, this is a great read if you want some insight into the crazy ideas that exist out there. Childress seems to have a mainline into most of them. His travel writing is pretty good too. One note: the editing is terrible. Spelling and typos all over the place. The typography & layout of the book do leave something to be desired.
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