Book Review: Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind

The Telegraph (Review by Tom Fort)

Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind by Colin Renfrew

This is not directly concered with Egyptology, but this review (and the book) may be of interest if your interests lie with prehistory (and Egypt has plenty of that!).

It's rather touching when an immensely learned figure attempts to educate a dimwit, like picturing Mr Gladstone in a stiff collar reading an improving tale to a child seated on his august lap. Here, the dimwit is me, the immensely learned figure is the archaeologist Colin Renfrew - Professor Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn - and the subject for the lesson is prehistory, the story of our species up to the first written records.

Renfrew sets himself a daunting dual challenge: to give the general reader an account of how the concept of prehistory emerged and established itself as a branch of scientific archaeology; and to explore the question of how - in his words - 'did we come to be where we are now?' And all this in just over 200 modest-sized pages.

See the above page for the full review.