- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: St. Martin's Press (Dec 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312324065
- ISBN-13: 978-0312324063
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 3.4 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,071,030 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Synopsis
Roger Atwood knows more about the market for ancient objects than almost anyone. He knows where priceless antiquities are buried, who is digging them up, and who is fencing and buying them. In this fascinating book, Atwood takes readers on a journey through Iraq, Peru, Hong Kong, and across America, showing how the worldwide antiquities trade is destroying what's left of ancient sites before archaeologists can reach them. Part detective story and part meditation on the power of art and culture, "Stealing History" is an essential account of how the past is being dug out from under us.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
WE SAT UNDER a tree in the moonlight chewing coca leaves, a heap of shovels and metal poles resting on the ground next to us. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
WE SAT UNDER a tree in the moonlight chewing coca leaves, a heap of shovels and metal poles resting on the ground next to us. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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12 reviews
25 of 28 people found the following review helpful
MISLEADING TITLE
3 July 2005
Format:Hardcover
There is nothing to add to the detailed analyses of this book previously detailed, except:
Know what you are buying: This book is 95% about the author
's experiences excavating at Sipan; as well as some discussion regarding other sites in northern Peru.
If this is what you want, it is an excellent book; however, it, in no way. is a more general discussion of its title and subtitle.
I was really hoping for a more extensive discussion regarding the many other sites around the world. So, in this difference, I would only give it one star.
Just know what you are buying.
I am keeping the book; however it's lack of what the title promised, and the many other sources that are available regarding
Peruvian (and particularly Sipan) resulted in my being very disappointed in its restricted coverage in contrast to its title.
Know what you are buying: This book is 95% about the author
's experiences excavating at Sipan; as well as some discussion regarding other sites in northern Peru.
If this is what you want, it is an excellent book; however, it, in no way. is a more general discussion of its title and subtitle.
I was really hoping for a more extensive discussion regarding the many other sites around the world. So, in this difference, I would only give it one star.
Just know what you are buying.
I am keeping the book; however it's lack of what the title promised, and the many other sources that are available regarding
Peruvian (and particularly Sipan) resulted in my being very disappointed in its restricted coverage in contrast to its title.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Well Written and Exciting
10 Dec 2004
Format:Hardcover
Stealing History takes an important subject and makes it interesting and readable. Atwood writes the book like an Indiana Jones novel mixed with a true crime story in the context of a history tome. He follows the path of an ancient golden artifact which is the largest ever found in the Americas from the looted tomb in Peru to the New Jersey Turnpike(!) in the US. Atwood writes in a compelling fashion which makes it hard to put the book down. Highly recommended!
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Tomb Raiders, Smugglers and the Looting of the Ancient World
7 Jan 2005
Format:Hardcover
Not quite Laura Croft or Indiana Jones, this book follows the fate of several Peruvian sites and the artifacts taken from them. The focus is as much on the conflicts between the commercial antiquities trade and the archaeologists who wish to study the sites intact (taken to the extreme in actually reburrying sites as to not attract the attention of looters). Not so surprisingly the Museums operate somewhere between - benefiting from the scholarship of the archelogists and also from the tomb raiders who supply them with items for their collections (not directly of course). Well told tales of FBI stings, government policies based more on diplomatic pressures than the "saving" of cultural records and in infighting between the Peruvian archeologist Walter Alva and what seems like the world. On the most basic level, this is about the destruction and loss of history in the quest of money. The book ends with a list of suggestions for what can be done to save these sites from destruction, but I still was left with questions. Some of the measures taken by the government seems a little broad and sweeping. It left me with many questions if government intervention is the best way to stop the flow of illegal artifacts. Although the author seems to show some preference to the side of Alva and the archelogists, he does speak and interview people from all parts of the community, from the actual people who rob the graves and archelogical sites to the people who buy these artifacts either for profit or art. The introduction wrote about Iraq right after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The looting of museums and archelogical sites was immediate. I appreciated the detail of the rest of the book and its covering of covering one subject (Peru and more specifically Sipan) when it would have been very easy to make this a survey and less personal. You get a great sense of the individual personalities involved.
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