The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany

Rating:
Summary: a great work made better
Review: Aubrey Burl's previous works were showing a wee bit of dating. As carbon dating become more accurate, you are seeing these ancient rings grow older in age instead of younger as they anticipated. While Burl's previous works were amazing, this long awaited "update" of this information, as well as addition information on more recent excavations make this is must. Yes, it expensive. But it's worth every penny. There are new insight in the the purpose of the rings of stone, a new interpretation of Calanais (sorry, as a Scot I refuse to call it Callanish!) and Stonehenge

The beautiful book is loaded with hundreds of photos, explores the ancestry, methods of construction and why they were abandoned after thousands of years of use.

Marvelous work made even better by bringing the information up to date.

Rating:
Summary: Fine Scholarship, Fine Writing
Review: I am not accustomed to purchasing so expensive and specialized a book, but in the early autumn of 1979, I had the privilege of working on a Scottish dig run by Dr. Burl, and I have long admired his scholarship and dedication---and this revision is, simply put, GREAT! The depth of information is astounding, and I found the the presentation engrossing, the subject fascinating, and the style quite readable---certainly NOT only for students or devotees of archaeology. I can't recommend this one highly enough---it may seem like something of an indulgence for your personal library, but it's worth every penny. Alas, the book is far to heavy to carry about in one's luggage, but I've already marked at least two dozen sites that I want to visit the next time I cross the Atlantic. In the meantime, settle back in a comfortable chair and get ready to cast your mind back a couple of millenia...

Rating:
Summary: The BEST learning/referance peice I have....thats about it
Review: This is truly by nature a great reference book. This 400 pager is most certainly not a light read. It is the kind of book that should accompany the libuary of a person whom needs a truly great source material peice, and point of complete infomation. This book is full of references to sites and works of other peoples and times. In his true old fasion and nature, Dr. Burl make many comments, not only on current data and modern ideas, but also speaks and illustrates alot of past records of the 17 and 18 hundreds. However, this is in no way a book on the history of studies, but realy is a truly up to date compilation of material, material that stretches far and wide into many disciplines. This book should though be aprouched by one that does already know and understand a little (if not a great deal) on stone circles. A great addition of the 'Die hard', but the new people may get a bit lost. For the writter likes to wander just a little, and makes asumpsions that the reader knows just what site he is talking about and in what era of neolithic/bronze age is in question. This book is realy for the people whom want to realy expand their material in this field. I would say "expand their knowladge", but this not only greatly does so, but also offers the access to the masses of referance and source notes that one could follow up on ones self.

However, The reason that I give this a 4 star, and not a 5, is that there are 'some' problems with it, which do not 'quite' make it PERFECT. Because of the masses of refering that Dr.Burl makes to all his material, the trend and flow of the text makes this at times an un-smooth read. (if there was such a word) Because this book is structured by area, and not by era, (which is probebly the easiest way to understand the Archaeology of stone circles). What would be a great help, is drawings, Archaeo plans, or some form of diagrams of the shapes he trys to discribe. Plan illistrations of the stone circles would help a great deal in relaying the infomation as intended. not here folks. I think that it is best to use this as a referance book, and not as a smooth read. This in fact is a very positive and greatly admired notion, one that I like in this book. Another great problem is one of punctuation. I know that my spelling is problematic, but the continues lack of a comma in this work often makes it VERY difficalt to understand what the exact message is, if one was trying to read with a smooth flow, and so I at times might need to spend a long time on just one page. I have realy liked reading this book, and leared a hell of alot from its text that does in fact go very well. Just be warned that a most perfect knowladge of local name places of every corner of britain is needed to follow him, and therefore, quite a bit of wandering and un-needed refering sometimes clouds over the general message. However, I do realy love this book. I think it is a most exelent 'back-bone' to one's serious study of this subject. Most deffinetly a must for the 'heavies' amongest us, a little warning to the un-propeared and the 'just learning'. A most complete, in all ways, standed and top notch peice of material. I feal that it is prehaps the collection pot of the cream of his life work. It certainly is my favorate on my shelf.