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IT BEGAN IN BABEL by Herbert Wendt

IT BEGAN IN BABEL

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Pub Date: Feb. 1st, 1961
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Report repeated from page 775 of the August 15th bulletin, when scheduled for fall publication, as follows: ""A likely companion piece in the continuum-In Search of . Out of and the Road to Man is defined as 'the story of the earth and the development of races and people'. Beginning with Herodotus' tall tales which subsequently were corroborated, just as Marco Polo's fabulous account of China was to a large extent later verified, this book ranges over the archaeology, anthropology and mythology of Asia, Africa, the near East, the Etruscans, and other civilizations. Wendt, a popularizer, who is no Sir Richard Burton or Sir James Frazier, has not done original work but has ransacked and ga gathered the experiences and findings of specialists. His book is divided into three parts and Monsters, Heathens and Slaves, and Totem and Taboo- into which he weaves the sagas of the great voyages of discovery, the history of colonizations, the evolution of cultures, and the interrelationships between man's development and his environment. He ranges in time and space from Habel to Easter Island, from South America to India, from China to the pygmies of the Congo woods. Wendt writes for all who want an overall perspective and his book is an anthropological 'museum without walls' for the general reader, rather than the informed.