"A moving autobiography, an exciting account of the rediscovery of
vanished civilizations, and unforgettable portraits of the
argumentative archaeologists who made those rediscoveries.
Enjoy!"--Jared Diamond
For more than four decades, Michael Coe has been at the forefront
of American archaeology. His research on the Olmecs and the Maya
has had a decisive effect on the way we think about Mesoamerican
culture, and his acclaimed books have introduced archaeology to a
popular audience. Now, in an act of personal excavation, Michael
Coe looks back on a remarkably diverse life.
For one whose life's work meant overturning many previously held
assumptions about the past, Coe's early years were quite
traditionally American. The Coes were a well-to-do Long Island
family, and Michael was born to a privileged lifestyle. He was an
indifferent student in college, and it took some time before he
settled on archaeology--time that was occupied by a stint in the
CIA, stationed on the China coast and in Taiwan, and travels to
Thailand and Sri Lanka.
Beginning in 1955, when Coe entered the Graduate School of Harvard
University, he committed himself to the civilizations of ancient
America. He worked on the front line of a generation of
archaeological discovery, research, and interpretation that has
profoundly altered and enhanced our vision of ancient Mesoamerica.
His quest to penetrate archaeological puzzles and mysteries has led
him on some extraordinary adventures: digging in remote Guatemala
in grueling conditions; investigating, dating, and defining the
little-known Olmec culture.
Coe has always had plenty of enthusiasm to spare--for his wife,
Sophie, and five children, and thedilapidated Massachusetts
farmhouse that they restored; for art collecting; for fly fishing
(an obsession that has taken him from the tropics to Siberia); and
for travel--to Russia under Brezhnev, to Angkor Wat after the Khmer
Rouge. Now, with the publication of his memoirs, the general public
will recognize what his colleagues have always known: here is a man
of brilliance, humor, and charm, who has lived his life as an
ebullient adventure. 41 illustrations.
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