This book opened a whole new world for me with its painstaking and voluminous depiction of life in the Western Hemisphere before European colonization.
Drawing on many archaeological sources and combining them with rich description from personal visits, the book created a vivid picture of how varied and complex the social life and culture was in North and South America, and how much (surprisingly) scientists know about the civilizations that came before us.
I couldn’t help imagining what the world would have been like if the Europeans had approached the New World as one society greeting another, rather than as conquerors.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492—from “a remarkably engaging writer” (The New York Times Book Review).
Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized…
I’ve been on an archaeology kick this year, and this book (a Christmas gift) was right in my sweet spot – detailed but accessible, with a personal viewpoint that brought the four “lost cities” to light.
It helped that one of those cities was near my home – Cahokia, in Illinois, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that I have visited. Two of the others (Angkor and Pompeii) are cities I had only a superficial knowledge of, but now feel much better informed about. And the fourth, Catalhoyuk in Turkey, was unknown to me. An insightful book with a fresh perspective on ancient urbanism.
In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the centre of a sophisticated civilisation: the Neolithic site of Catalhoeyuk in Central Turkey, the Roman town of Pompeii on Italy's southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia and the indigenous American metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today.
Newitz travels to all four sites and investigates the…
As a novelist, I am impatient with books that follow familiar tropes or well-worn storylines.
This book takes a familiar premise – the Western story of a son whose father is murdered by a badman – and turns it on his head, for Euly Kreider, the wronged son, is a Mennonite pacifist who immediately rules out revenge. So where will this Western go?
Every chapter holds a surprise. As the title implies, this book loosely uses the Odyssey as a template for its deep dive into the history of the Oklahoma Land Rush.
In late fall of 1892 outlaw Eddie Mole gallops down the main street of Jericho Springs, Kansas, where he robs and shoots dead the freighter Barney Kreider. Some urge Barney's son Ulysses ("Euly") to take revenge, but Euly is a Mennonite and Mennonites don't seek revenge. Instead, Euly plots how to make his fortune with the aid of his half-Osage sister, Kate, and his friend Johnny, an Osage farmhand. The three make a plan to sell goods and livestock to the settlers converging on Caldwell, Kansas, for the land run going on in the…
Country and city collide when Charlotte Turner’s son Adam turns their sleepy Ozarks village of Daybreak into a tourist attraction with his bestselling novel The Hill-Billies of Heaven Holler. But his idea of setting up a hillbilly exhibit at the 1904 World’s Fair has unforeseen consequences as Charlotte, her granddaughter Petey, and the rest of Daybreak are caught up in the exoticism, greed, and danger that surround the event.
The adventure leads to violence at home and at the Fair, and Charlotte must make life-or-death choices to keep Petey safe and preserve her beloved community.
