Sir Aurel Stein: Archaeological Explorer

by Jeannette Mirsky

Book Overview

An extraordinary man, who advanced human knowledge on many fronts, Sir Aurel Stein (1862-1943) pursued dramatic adventure with scientific purpose. Jeannette Mirsky has drawn from Stein's voluminous outpouring of books and articles as well as from his letters and unpublished archival materials to produce a lively and definitive biography of this archaeological explorer, geographer, historical topographer, and linguist.

" Mirsky] has digested the correspondence, and she quotes so skillfully that her book will save many people the trouble of reading Stein's own exhaustive and exhausting volumes. Definitive."-Larry McMurtry, Washington Post

"A first-rate and unique biography of one of the more significant explorers of Central Asia and the Indo-Iranian borderlands. . . . Mirsky has recreated not only the life of an intrepid explorer but the spirit of the times."-Choice

"Mirsky has performed a signal service in distilling the life, travels, and letters of Aurel Stein into a manageable, graceful, and meaningful synthesis."-Theodore A. Wertime, Technology and Culture

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226531775
• ISBN13: 9780226531779
• Release Date: October 1998
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 616 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

a scholar's guide to the life of Sir Marc Aurel Stein

Jeanette Mirsky, formerly affiliated with the USIS and Princeton University, has written a biography of Sir Aurel Stein that is sure to appeal to scholars interested by the life of this most fascinating explorer. In order to write her book, Mirsky went to significant lengths to find and read Stein's correspondence with his relatives and friends, and then, in then when she wrote the book, chose to quote very liberally from his letters, to such an extent that this book is not as much a biography as snippets of his letters interspersed with a running commentary that is a biography. Stein was an extremely fascinating explorer: as a philologist and explorer he had few peers. Unfortunately men of his caliber are no longer made nowadays in our age of MTV and plane trips to China; for scholars who want to read the primary sources, or rather abridged parts of his translated letters, this book will truly be invaluable. But the very complexity and sophistication of Ms. Mirsky's book mean that it is not the sort of book you would want to give to your teen to get him or her interested in Central Asian history.

First Rate But

As the editorial reviewer stated, this is indeed a first rate biography. It only lacks good map which is something hard to understand considering the subject. However, don't let this put you off; find an atlas with a map of central Asia and enjoy.