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- Verified Buyer
This book was written in the late 1920's by a Swedish geologist/academic,& translated into English, and the sentence structure makes this process very evident in it's, sometimes rather tortured, syntax. Also, the rather racist attitude of Westerners towards the local Chinese which was extant at that time is obvious, both in the manner in which he discusses them & their lives, and in the overly gushing way his describes the skills of their academics and officials (as if he were surprised). The book itself is, appropriately enough, a smorgasbord offering chapters on anthropology, paleontology, geology & culture depending on the whim of the author. Andersson was a geologist by training, and extremely curious by nature, thus he felt the need to discuss every important aspect of the various excavations taking place in China at that time, name-dropping all the important explorers & academics who worked there during the 20's & 30's (e.g. Roy Chapman Andrews and Walter Granger) and placing himself in the middle of this extremely important period: for example he was. according to this book, the one who predicted that Peking Man would be found in the very cave in which it was discovered well before the discovery itself.The book is interesting, and Andersson certainly knows his geology (there are numerous pages devoted to the unusual geologic features of China), and his access to many excavations allowed him to write about pottery, stone and early metal tools, as well as the flora and fauna which was being uncovered at sites over much of the country. One problem for the modern reader is that Andersson uses the spelling of Chinese names as they were at that time, and some of these are so different from what is current, that finding the equivalent locations can be 'interesting'. Also, the book does jump around, and the timeline is so disjointed that it can be somewhat confusing as to who discovered what, when. Another aspect of this book that was surprising was Andersson's inclusion of Piltdown Man as a member of the hominid family tree (apparently he didn't update this book after the hoax was uncovered, even though he was still alive for several years after this skull was completely debunked).As long as the reader can overlook the smugness of the author, the convoluted syntax, and the spelling of locations, I can recommend the book to anyone interested in the early days of paleontology and archeology in China, because it is so broad thus is useful as an overview. It doesn't help the reader looking for further readings, since it does not include a bibliography (although several writings are cited throughout the book in footnotes), Finally, it is the kind of book that be picked up whenever, since it is written in so episodic a style.
