The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America (Ancient Peoples and Places)

Rating:
Summary: Great Reference Book
Review: As a teacher of middle school I found this book to be a great reference in class.

Rating:
Summary: Unhappy about this book!
Review: Pros: The photographs are nice.

Cons: Milner likes to downplay the prehistoric significance of Native American earthworks and the effort it took to build them. In this book, the author seemingly has the goal to remove the reader's admiration of mounds. He belittles the significance of Cahokia Mounds to the point of bitterness. The author does not recognize the symbolic importance of mounds being the door to eternal life in the minds of the Native Americans that built them.


Rating:
Summary: Solid; 3.5
Review: This is a very good introduction to the peoples who left behind the impressive mounds in eastern North America. This book is pitched at an undergraduate level. Milner provides a chronologically arranged review of the prehistory of eastern North America. He sticks closely to the archeaology of sites and is careful to avoid speculation beyond what the often modest evidence provides. Milner is a workmanlike writer who does a solid job of describing excavations and their probable significance. The illustrations are very good and there is anice appendix describing sites that can be visited. Deficiencies of this book are that there is relatively little discussion of why cultures changed. Were there climactic factors? Some comparisons with other evolving cultures of the Americas could have been enlightening.