Great geological controversies by A. Hallam, Oxford University Press, 1983. No. of pages: 182. Price: £15.00 (hardback), £7.95 (paperback)

✍ Scribed by D. Flinn

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 177 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0072-1050
• DOI: 10.1002/gj.3350190209

✦ Synopsis

Book reviews

SCOTLAND'S ENVIRONMENT DURING THE LAST 30,oOO YEARS by R. J. Price. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, 1983. No. of pages: 224. Price: f27.50 (hardback), f15.00 (paperback).

This book presents an account of the last glaciation of Scotland and of its aftermath and is thus a m e history of a glaciation. This distinguishes it from most books on glaciation which have separate chapters on the various features and aspects of glaciation dealt with in random order with perhaps a chapter at the end attempting to put it all together. Here a blow-by-blow account of the glaciation is presented with the causes and consequences dealt with as they arise in the story even though it means covering similar but chronologically separate aspects more than once. The book takes the form of a montage of published work rather than the author's authoritatively presented views. I find this book much more readable and more use as a guide to the work done, the literature, and current views than any previous ones I have read on the subject. I am not sure how many specialista in Scottish glaciation will agree with me because in the tiny part of the subject to which I have claims to specialist knowledge I found poor indexing, faulty referencing, and false reporting. The index is certainly a very poor one; however I doubt if the other criticisms apply to much of the rest of the book.

D. FLINN

GREAT GEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES by A. Hallam, Oxford University Press, 1983. No. of pages: 182. Price: f15.00 (hardback), f7.95 (paperback).