The text is very well organized into chapter-by-chapter progressions from the beginning of organic life through the Bronze...
READ REVIEW
QUEST FOR PREHISTORY
by ‧RELEASE DATE: March 31, 1966
The text is very well organized into chapter-by-chapter progressions from the beginning of organic life through the Bronze Age. Short essays cover the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Mammals, the Ice Age, prehistoric Primates, the Old Stone Age, the New Stone Age, and early man in America. The author writes well in this digest survey form and introduces a wealth of information with careful definitions of the proper scientific terms he employs. It is the extras rather than the main text which weaken the book. The illustrations laid out in the wide margins are, at first glance quite handsome. They are, however, more decorative than meaningful and only a few are labelled. The absence of a pronouncing glossary is an unfortunate oversight. The short bibliography, concentrating on the more expert of the adult titles in hardcover and paperback, is a fairly useless inclusion, ignoring as it does the wealth of excellent material currently available in this area and written especially for this reading level. There is an initial heading index without cross references. It's a popular subject area for supplemental reading but the total result of this book is to leave the ultimate reader questing after that which could have been supplied. The first title in the Quest series was on the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is the second.