Rating: 
Summary: A good, thorough introduction to a complex field.
Review: This is a good, thorough introduction to a complex and difficult subject matter. Dr. Mallory has assembled material from linguistics, archeology, and historical accounts to document the many aspects and issues in this hotly-contested area. While readers searching to fuel political programs will find little fodder here, serious students can trust both the majority of the details and the major conclusions of the author. He also follows the professional custom of summarizing major alternative interpretations when discussing issues still in dispute within the field.Undoubtedly, some will find the entire concept of Indo-European origins offensive; for them the best course might be to look elsewhere. This book is not about polemics, but about rational, careful scholarship; even if the very premise of Indo- European language were called into question, the historical and archeological detail would be fascinating.
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting attempt
Review: This is an interesting attempt to figure out exactly where the Indo-Europeans came from. The problemn is that we can't really know for sure. Still, the author's combonation of both linguistics and archaeology makes it a good readf for those interested in either subject.
Rating:
Summary: One of many good books on the subject
Review: This is very good book, with a lot of references to consolidate the author's approach to where really was situated in Europe the homeland of the early Indo-europeans, who lived somewhere in Europe some 4000 years BC and spoke a so-called Proto-Indo-european family language, from where a lot of branch langues (English included) originated. In fact, the task is gigantic, given the few support each one of the approaches he takes (myths, language and archeological analysis) gains from the others. But this is the beauty of it all, seeing a respected scholar paving the path to the truth with sound work and plenty of patience.
If you like to know a bit more about the origins of many languages like English, this a good book to buy.
Rating:
Summary: Indo-Europeans, not Aryans....
Review: Who were the INDO-EUROPEANS? According to British linguist J.P. Mallory, their language was the proto-type of the languages spoken by over 2 billion people today. He also says the Indo-Europeans should not be confused with the `Aryans' claimed to be the progenitors of the Third Reich. Mallory suggests the Indo-Europeans appear to have been a pastoral nomadic group who lived in the Pontic-Caspian region (Steppes of Mother Russia) sometime between the second and fifth millenium BC from whence they diffused.
Mallory employs what paleolinguistics to show how several dozen modern languages are descended from a `Proto Indo-European' mother tongue that came to dominate many other languages (not all) of the European-Asian land mass. He uses the work of archeologists to support of his theory. In a nutshell, he mostly disagrees with Colin Renfrew, while mostly agreeing with Marija Gimbutas. Renfrew apparently has posited the idea that the changes archeologists see in the successive layers of excavated sites are the result of internal innovation and successive technological change (folks keep reinventing the wheel), where Gimbutas seems to subscribe to the notion that hostile horse-riding kurgan-building invaders from the steppes mowed down the peaceful matriarchial civilizations of their neighbors. Mallory suggests paleolinguistics supports the idea that the languages of Europe and Asia which resemble each other did not spring up independently of one another and it is not likely that the civilizations that sustained them did either.
Mallory theorizes the diffusion of the proto Indo-Euopean language from a Pontic-Caspian homeland took three paths, one through Anatolia and the Balkans, one through Northern Europe, and one East toward Iran and India ( the case for Anatolia, Greece and parts of Southern Europe appears to be very strong). He also suggests that the diffusion may have in part been the result of internal changes such as excessive population growth and climatic change that made agriculture a losing proposition. The social change resulting from the adaptation of more successful strategies for survival, such as pastoral nomadism may have led to a greater acceptance of the people who brought it about and their language. Whatever brought about the change, Indo-European languages exist from Ireland to India today.
Readers of Rian Eisler's CHALICE AND THE BLADE, and Merlin Stone's WHEN GOD WAS A WOMAN, will find their ideas are fairly well supported by Mallory's work.
Mallory's arguments on behalf of his thesis are clear and compelling. He methodically builds his case using the work of many scholars from both the East and the West. Perhaps one of the wonderful outcomes from the `fall of the wall' in 1989, is the reunification of scholars from the old Soviet block with those of the West.
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