Thursday, March 19, 2009

In the Footsteps of Joseph Rock


Now here's an amazing blog. Rock was a botanist/anthropologist/scholar of the type and energy and wide interests that just don't seem to exist any more (check out his Wikipedia entry). I saw a passing reference to a piece Bruce Chatwin wrote about him calling one of Rock's books the most eccentric ever published by the Harvard University Press (1948's two-volume The Ancient Na-khi Kingdom of Southwest China which is in my library so I'll probably take a look but unless it's Corvo eccentric likely will never read).

Anyway, this four-years-and-counting blog has some of Rock's original photos along with lots (and I mean lots) of current ones by the blogger, apparently an Australia-based Brit. I do kinda wish there was a bit more text but that doesn't matter very much.