cover image A Golden Journey: Memoirs of an Archaeologist

A Golden Journey: Memoirs of an Archaeologist

Luther S. Cressman. University of Utah Press, $35 (506pp) ISBN 978-0-87480-293-1

Readers expecting to find a revealing account of Cressman's abortive first marriage to anthropologist Margaret Mead will be disappointed by this wooden memoir. Defensiveness and a certain bitterness, however, creep into his version of events, intended as a corrective to Mead's popular Blackberry Winter. Cressman's prose warms up when he describes his second wife, a resourceful, plucky Scotswoman who became his partner in the adventure of archeological discovery. Weighed down by preachy self-analysis and wordy dramatizations of his intellectual crises, this autobiography charts his unusual career switch from Protestant seminarian to scientist. Cressman's important contributions to American prehistory and the reconstruction of early civilizations are diminished by his tedious accounts of field trips. Nor do his exchanges with Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict and other luminaries add luster. Scholars and serious students of archeology probably comprise this book's main audience. (April)