THE WORLD OF THE PAST

An enormous two volume exploration through essays of the Ancient World, elected by Jacquetta Hawkes who recently co-authored an historical work of extreme rudition which tracked through similar territory (Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilization- p.283). So her credentials are fully established. Most of the material gathered- from archaeologists or scholars- includes such redoubtable specimens as extracts from Winckelmann's Hellenistic studies, Sir Leonard Woolley's El Mina expedition, and the excavations by Schliemann at Troy and Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos. There are also classical bigwigs, e.g., Herodotus and Tacitus; the latter's report on the German race being probably the earliest in-depth social anthropology. But the most enjoyable entry by far comes from, of all people, D.H. Lawrence, with his little-known mucking-about in the enigmas of the Etruscan era, towards which he time-travelled seeking emblems of a superhuman race supposedly embodying his blood-consiousness ideal. Miss Hawkes' introduction- a long, lively, learned curtain-raiser- ably arranges all the aspects of the cultures and civilizations under discussion: the Old and New Stone ages, the Far East, the Near East, Europe and Middle and Northern America.