Customer Reviews

Stonehenge (Building History)

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I checked out this book because I'm researching the history of England using a very small-town library. I thought it would at least give me some basic information, but, I soon found out that there is a lot (and I mean a LOT) that I never even knew about Stonehenge. (...) It's just a really good book written in really easy to follow, non-techno speech.

The average visitor to Stonehenge stays at the World Heritage Site for thirty minutes: just enough time to snap a few pictures and buy a postcard at the visitors center and gift shop. Most tourists skip the local museums in Salisbury and nearby Devizes where they could actually learn about the history of the site and the people who inhabited the region way back when. Conservation efforts have made it so that people can no longer walk amongst the giant stones and be able to touch or even climb on them; they also do not get to spray paint them with graffiti anymore. In this informative volume on Stonehenge for the Building History Series, author Wendy Mass not only examines the construction and meaning of the site but looks at the current debate over its preservation.

Stonehenge is the most mysterious monument in the British Isles, although Mass makes it clear that there are henges and barrows throughout Europe. What you can go and see today, albeit from a distance, is Stonehenge IIIc, and Maas explains how the site that began with neolithic builders digging a circular bank and ditch on Salisbury Plain between 3100-2700 B.C.E. would eventually become the familiar circle of stones. Chapters are devoted to the building of the original site as well as the early and later stages of construction. The fourth chapter looks at the wide range of speculation concerning the purpose of Stonehenge while the final chapter is devoted to the commercial and historical history of the site over the past century. Apparently the current plan is to remove the existing 20th-century structures and build a new center a mile away, which would allow visitors to approach the stones as they appear isolated in the field, as the builders intended. By the time Maas has traced the speculation of the building and purpose of the stones, this seems a totally appropriate idea (which means it probably will not happen).

"Stonehenge" is written for a juvenile audience but Mass does not water down the material for her audience. Young students researching Stonehenge will find this a superb research volume for their efforts. The Building History series looks at the stories behind the construction of some of the world's greatest structures from the pyramids of Giza to the Panama Canal. Sidebars provide additional information about the personalities of the builders and the technology that influenced the building process. "Stonehenge" is illustrated with black & white photographs, excellent diagrams, maps, and drawings of the site and its construction. The volume also has a chronology of important dates that provide students with an overview of the evolution and use of Stonehenge as well as two bibliographies, one for student research and the other listing works consulted by Mass in preparing the book.