NUMELIN, R.,
The Wandering Spirit. A Study of Human Migration. With a Foreword by E. Westermarck.
Macmillan, London, 1937. XVI,375p. Original red cloth. Spine a bit dicoloured. Head and tail spine as well as corners a bit worn. Cover a bit stained. ‘Students of Social Anthropology will welcome this book as a solid contribution to their science. The book also holds a great interest for the general reader. It presents a general analysis of the leading causes which have governed the large-scale movements of peoples in the earlier stages of civilisation, and has attempted to bring within the compass of a single book, information scattered through an extensive range of literature. Reference to literature covers 45 pages of the book, and the researches of the author have led him not into the fields of philosophical speculation, but to formulation of a sociological explanation of the factors involved in determining human wanderings. (…) He points out that although the original causes which impelled the primitive groups to vagabondage, have ceased to exist, still the spirit of wandering has become second nature to people such as the gypsies, to whom the author has devoted an interesting chapter. (…) It is almost impossible to give in the course of a review an idea of the range and variety of the enquiry pursued by the author and the very interesting results summarised by him in the book. This volume is a critical summary of a whole library of books, and it is at once illuminating and stimulating. (N.N. in Current Science, 1937, p.599).
€ 37.50
(Antiquarian)