Lost Cities of Africa & Arabia

by David Hatcher Childress

Book Overview

Join Childress as he discovers forbidden cities in the Empty Quarter of Arabia, 'Atlantean' ruins in Egypt and the Kalahari desert; a mysterious, ancient empire in the Sahara; and more. This is an... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0932813062
• ISBN13: 9780932813060
• Release Date: November 1987
• Publisher: Adventures Unlimited Press
• Length: 325 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Great Series, Great Book

this, another book in the Lost Cities Series, arrived quickly and in excellent condition. i've had fun reading them one by one.

Lots of flavor, little facts...

Ok, let's get one thing out of the way. David Childress is not an archeologist. Some people seem to get hung up on this, so let's make that real clear. I always see his books in the "Travel Narrative" section of the bookstore, and that's exactly what they are... great travel narratives. The books has two modes. Mr. Childress' travel stories, and his telling of "wacky" theories of the places he visits. Within the first 25 pages, you have stories of ancient nuclear weapons, flying machines, and continent spanning civilizations that no one has heard of! And he explains that this is the "easiest" way of rationalizing the things he has seen! (Such as, giant blocks of stone that are too big to move, "even by modern engineering").On the whole, this is a great read if you want some insight into the crazy ideas that exist out there. Childress seems to have a mainline into most of them. His travel writing is pretty good too. One note: the editing is terrible. Spelling and typos all over the place. The typography & layout of the book do leave something to be desired.

A very interesting historical travelogue

David Hatcher Childress' Lost Cities series has proven to be consistently interesting, and Lost Cities and Ancient Mysteries of Africa and Arabia is no exception. Taking the everyman approach to travel writing, Childress' accounts of his travels through Arabia and Egypt are very interesting and insightful, full of both interesting travel advice relevant to the regions he travelled through and accounts of personal experiences that make his stories very interesting to read. He thoroughly covers all of the major and most of the minor historical sites to be found throughout Africa and Arabia, often at great personal risk. It took guts to make the journeys he has made, many of which were in areas very dangerous for Americans, and a talent for writing to make them interesting. I thoroughly recommend this and all of the other Lost Cities series of books to all would-be travelers with an open mind and an interest in the unusual.

There's no other book like this one!

There is no other book on Africa, or Arabia, like this one! Like in his other books, Childress rambles from place to place looking for mysteries, lost cities, and adventure. If you are looking for some dry fossil hunter story, this isn't it. It's the only book that I know of that covers such unusual topics as port cities in the middle of the Arabian Desert, the history of the Ark of the Covenant, the giant megaliths of the Kalahari Desert and other little-discussed topics. Lots of old maps, photos and illustrations. It is a fun book to browse through as well.

A Great Look into the Lost cities from a travel POV

I think this book is great. I love DHC's writing style and humor. His perspective is refreshing and clever -- a book of discovery as travel is -- new discoveries around every corner!