Customer Reviews

Lost Cities of China, Central Asia and India (The Lost City Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I found this book to be extremely interesting. I'm fascinated by history, both conventional and unconventional, and found this book to be a bit of both. It is full of anecdotes of the author's travels and contains details that many other history books gloss over as being too trivial; the result is a richer, fuller account of many different peoples and places in an easy-to-read, conversational style. In fact, the book is almost an historical travel guide. I thought that the reader who criticised the book as being full of crackpot theories was being very unfair. Sure, the author comes across as a bit of a hippie, but so what? Are his opinions any less valid just because he subscribes to some beliefs that many others don't share. The only question is whether these beliefs bias his work. They don't. Read it and enjoy.

The title says this book is about Lost Cities, but it is really about the authors travels through Asia and the Middle East in the late 1970's. There is a fair amount of information about so-called Lost Cities sprinkled here and there through out the narrative, but this comes from sources other than the authors travels as is evidenced by the extensive bibliography (4 pages!). One annoying feature of this book is that it has some wonderful B&W pictures that are completely out of sequence with the narrative. As a travel log it is an excellent window to other cultures and philosophies, but it is certainly not archaeology. David Hatcher Childress may be a legitamte Archaeologist, but you certainly couldn't tell it from this book. I would think twice about purchaseing any of the authors other books, based on this one.

As someone with a great interest in ancient history and lost civilisations, I bought this book with enthusiasm (it has a title not to be ignored). I feel compelled however to express my disappointment with this book; it is nothing more than a travel account written by a 1970s hippie backpacking through Asia. Occasionally the author would encounter another traveller who would tell an enticing tale (no guarantee of authenticity), and then postulate "is this a hidden mystery?" - clearly gullible, the author seemed open to whomever he encountered and whatever fancy stories they had to tell (the old adage of "gullible American" comes to mind). There is no new information, no quality thought-provoking research, and no new images either - all pictures in the book are old archives published in many other books for decades, and what's more they are positioned between chapters seemingly as an afterthought (there are no references to the images in the text). If you are interested in this subject, go to Graham Hancock who is a genuine researcher and has made genuine new discoveries. Hatcher-Childress's book is a complete waste of money; furthermore, every single page without exception is riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Shame on the author, shame on the publisher. One star for audacity (I'd give it four or five if it was advertised as a travel guide to Asia).

This book offers a unique blend of travel writing, history, and theoretics. I enjoyed David Hatcher Childress' accounts of his travels and found several suggested theories of ancient history plausible while others humorous. This book is for the traveler at heart and the person interested in the possibilities of the past!

brings you through nepal, tibet, india, china...mostly the remote destinations in search of lost cities...fun and interesting to read and makes you feel like being there to explore the mystries of ancient civilizations.

The Lost Cities series by David Hatcher Childress has proven for me to be probably the most entertaining, thoroughly informative, and thought provoking series of books I have ever read and have also served as an invaluable road map for my own travels around the world in search of ancient mysteries. I have traveled, so far, to several locations in Egypt, Malta, Europe, Asia, Central and South America and each time I have used his books to plan my route and have taken whichever one I needed for the journey as a guide. I bought the whole series long ago and they are generally beat to hell if not falling apart at this point and I wouldn't have them any other way. Reading this series made me make up my mind that I could never be satisfied being a spectator of the debate, but the only way to truly know these mysteries was to be a participant and see them for myself. At the very least this series should inspire you to get out there, live your life as a traveler and not a tourist and go see these places for yourself. Save the money, do it cheap, whatever you have to do, but don't let the opportunity to actually go there pass you by in this life.

Equal parts detective story, travel guide, diary, history book, and compendium of esoteric knowledge; what makes these books so unique, among other things, is that Childress takes the reader with him through every step of the journey -cold beers, missed trains, broken legs, chance encounters, stolen wallets, one night stands in far away places, wishing you could stay but knowing you can't. All the while on the trail of an ever growing mystery with every answer leaving only more questions spurring you on to the next stop wondering what will happen next. One thing I always respected about Childress in these books, which some may not get the point, is that while at times he does present off-beat esoteric ideas about lost civilizations, it is done so not to promote any particular idea, but rather to give a greater context of the history of the literature of the last few hundred years concerning lost civilizations in the hope that something worthwhile might be gleaned from even the most outlandish or dated of source. To him it is a journey and to his credit does little to leave any stone unturned. But also unique to Childress compared with other writers of the genre is that other than the obvious general idea that there is much more to the story of history than we know, he rarely takes a definitive stance on any pet theory, but rather presents the information with more of a sense of wonder and openness and is really not trying to sell the reader on anything either way other than the necessity to keep an open mind. All just interesting to know and he leaves the reader to think of it what they will which is refreshing.

All and all very interesting and entertaining and I highly recommend getting the whole series. The Lost Cities series are true classics of the genre and should be a front and center addition to any alternative researchers library and as a whole are an unparalleled source of of information about many megalithic sites and discoveries you will be hard pressed to find anywhere else. Hopefully they will inspire you as they did me.

As an ardent armchair traveller with a real interest in lost histories, for me this book combined two great loves. David writes well and really makes you feel that you are travelling with him through India and China and on the roof of the world. His observations are to the point and his knowledge of early history impressive. Recommended.

The author, who is characterized on the dust jacket as a "maverick archaeologist", has written a so-so narrative of his travels on the hippy trail through south Asia. To dignify this person with the title of "archaeologist" is to insult Aurel Stein, Roy Chapman Andrews, Sven Hedin, and the other pioneers of central Asian archaeology. In the course of his narrative, the author shares a number of "scientific" tidbits that would be right at home in scripts for the X-Files. If you would like to learn about such things as: the purported existence of a super-human race inhabiting India 30,000 years ago; a nuclear war 30,000 years ago that destroyed that race; yetis; a secret network of tunnels connecting the major monasteries of Tibet; a Venusian(!) known as the King of the World waiting inside our hollow earth; tunnels running the length of Peru, built by Atlanteans; etc. etc., then this is the book for you. Is it archaeology?? Nope.

I have several of the Lost City series books by David. The others that I have read are both a travel guide and an account of the lost cities he encountered. They were well written. However, this book does still have his travel adventures, but is lacking in the lost cities. Very few entries are refered to with the lost cities. David is not an archologist. He does, however, describe what he sees very well. It is just that this book doesn't have much to describe. If you are looking for a book of facts, this is not the one to buy. It is entertaining.

I wasn't really impressed with this book. In fact, I have removed the rest of the series from my wish list. Maybe I was expecting a travelogue-type account. It was more the ramblings of a tourist. The editing was extremely sloppy. There had to have been a typo on at least every other page. For some that's not a problem, but for me personally, it grated!