The First Men in the World

Not bad. Not as much fun as Prehistoric America, but interesting - more for the parts about people discovering stuff (stones and bones and art and...) and far less for the imagined scenes of Ancient Man and what and why he was doing stuff (Man is driven to explore! to go on! He's restless and will move without good reason...yeah, right). One amusing casual reference - very recently, it has been determined that a) Cro-Magnon Man and Neanderthal Man shared the same locations for quite a while and b) there was a lot of cross-breeding (Neanderthal genes discovered in modern humans). So her mention of the Cro-Magnon driving the Neanderthal out of his cave - but let his wife stay, she can work and go to someone who doesn't have a woman... was show more way ahead of its time. It's a short, slim book, in quite simple language - written for youngsters, I wouldn't dare say what age she was aiming for (writing in 1953). It would be an interesting introduction to archaeology/paleontology, especially the part about when a new discovery is made it's usually rejected as ridiculous before it becomes obvious fact. show less