Lost Cities of Africa and Arabia (The Lost City Series) [Paperback]

David Hatcher Childress (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 423 pages
• Publisher: Adventures Unlimited Press (November 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0932813062
• ISBN-13: 978-0932813060
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #711,026 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very interesting historical travelogue, April 9, 2000

By 

Doug Elwell - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lost Cities of Africa and Arabia (The Lost City Series) (Paperback)

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.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of flavor, little facts..., May 4, 2002

By 

David C. Johnson (Spencer, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lost Cities of Africa and Arabia (The Lost City Series) (Paperback)

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.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting read, March 10, 2002

By 

Elmsaafir "Ryokojin" (Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lost Cities of Africa and Arabia (The Lost City Series) (Paperback)

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!!