Customer Reviews

Ancient Micronesia & the Lost City of Nan Madol (Lost Cities of the Pacific)

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Here is a writer with an unflagging lust for ancient cities who is more than willing to pick and expand pieces from any source he can find. But he is fun!! I collect pacifica and I lived there but he has found sources I've never heard of. I think he includes some factoids just to add to the references. But still its readable, current and his actually visiting the sites is worth a look from anyone interested in the subject. I'm sending it to my 88 year-old dad who lived in the area as a young man. He'll love it even as he finds fault.

It is difficult to find books that include an indepth look at diffusionist theory in Micronesia, or other Pacific Islands, for that matter. Thor Heyerdahl, Barry Fell, and others have proposed that the settlement of the Pacific started in early Egypt. Indeed, did the same people who built the Egyptian pyramids and megaliths build the incredible city of Nan Madol? Childress says that Nan Madol and other megalithic remains in the Pacific were built by the ancient Egyptians. A great theory, and Childress provides a great deal of evidence in the form of photos, maps, and well referenced "facts." Highly recommended for diffusionists and those who study the megalith builders of thousands of years ago.

Indeed, as other reviewers have also observed, some of the contents of this book come from uncertain sources. Some of its parts are more serious, some less so. But all in all, this book does provide a great insight into the culture and life of ancient Micronesia - and it's one of very few books that accomplish this. It is written in a vivid style, easy to read, serving also as a guidebook to some extent for those visiting the region. For armchair travellers, real travellers, scholars of Micronesia, and others, this is a book I recommend ! Just take it with some caution if you are looking for academic rigour.

This book had me excited I love lost cities and and bieng part Chamoru I was very excited to learn about My Ancestors, at first he guides you through all of these great cities and cultures, then he tells you in a "Nice" way that these stone structures could have never been made by Micronesians, I was sure he was going to start calling Micronesians Savages He got most of his information from books printed over a hundred years ago written during the great Teutonic Revival during this time, Nearly everyone was trying to put Aryans on every corner of the globe, he qouted one of My favorite Epigraphic writer's Barry Fell he bielieves that Polynesians are from Lybya which he bases solely on the fact of simuliar writing or alphabets, I don't Doubt that the pacific Islands were visited by Differant peoples all over the earth, but why is it the bielief that only white people can move stone and make stone temples and cities, every Great civilization has had its White Stamp on it and I find that ridiculous, Dont get me wrong I am very Proud of My white Heritage but white people aren't the only people who can move stones and create cities, He does mention Chinese Envolvment and Japanese in the Marianas which I don't doubt, but these are a brief few paragraphs then he goes back to White settlers, and in conclusion this book is Basically a patchwork Quilt he gathers info from all over mostly from outdated books and sources and put it all in one book to make a buck, there are better books

As a previous reviewer has mentioned, this book, and others of its ilk, such as works by authors like Barry Fell, is based on the premise that only white people have invented anything complex. I don't think Childress is genuinely racist in motivation, he's just not the brightest of bulbs. The idea that cultures can develop in similar ways without being in contact with one another is a concept too subtle for the likes of Childress, but it doesn't stop him coming up with his usual ill considered opinions.
These books do a great disservice to the people of the Pacific, to scholarship, the past, and just plain honesty. If you want a genuine examination of Pacific prehistory you'd be far better off reading Pat Kirch or Peter Bellwood than wasting your time on Childress' childish scribblings.