Customer Reviews

The History of Archaeology: Great Excavations of the World

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I am a historian and archaeology buff, and longtime fan of John Romer's works. I anxiously awaited this book, and was horribly disappointed once I got into it. This is not really a history of archaeology, but Romer's thoughts on certain archaeologists and digs, or his leftover notes from earlier books. It skips about in time and locale to such an extent that almost any chapter can be read alone, and the book can be read in any order. Romer totally omits any mention of Marine Archaeology, despite its enormous significance over the past 20 years. Worse, there are factual errors. For example, the modern Olympic Games of 1900 took place in Paris, not Athens, which hosted the first games in 1896 (p. 180). Moreover, neither tennis courts nor swimming pools were built for the 1896 Games. The tennis took place at a club in Athens and the swimmers competed in the ocean, where several quit due to the extreme cold. Most disappointing to me, Romer's usually lilting prose is absent much of the time. There are all manner of grammar and syntax errors. For example, on page 198 "...then converted to an opera house in the nineteenth century whose acoustics were said to be the best in Europe." He has Henirich Schliemann rushing "hither and thither" about Mycenae on page 110 and again on 111. Both style and format are distracting, making it hard to follow. This could have been a fabulous book, but it is not, and certainly not worth the price!