Back of History

383 pages with illustrations, diagrams, maps, figures, drawings and index. Octavo (8 1/2" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's beige cloth with green label to spine with gilt lettering and pictorial bison to cover in original jacket. First edition. Ruth Moore's Man, Time and Fossils (Knopf-P. 603) opened the avenue of interest in man's evolution to many laymen. Now Dr. Howells uses another approach, presenting what he terms a digestive interpretation and condensation, skillfully bypassing professional terminology, footnotes, discussion of theoretical differences, to produce a readable book on a popular level. Man's story, he claims, begins with the Primates, and we are introduced to baboon, howler, gibbon and chimp societies. Man, however, is distinct in having culture, not inherited biologically. He then turns to the study of cultures:- Stone Age and first trace of man; the hunters, the farmers of the Neolithic. The organization of society, the place of religion, the effect of inventions. After an excursion to the New World and the problematical question of immigration and Indian civilization, he turns to the Bronze Age, and the growing dominion of city-states- foretaste of eventual emergence of world government. The use of the ethnological present tense at various points in the time spectrum adds to narrative quality but sometimes confuses us chronologically. The book has humor and often fascination and more popular appeal than Lewinsohn's Animals Men and Myths. Condition: Spine extremities rubbed, spine lettering rubbed. Jacket spine extremities chipped, corners chipped, some edge chips and tears else very good in about very good jacket.