Nabataeans: A Brief History of Petra and Madain Saleh Paperback by David Tschanz (Medina Publishing)

This is a wonderful book about a wonderful place. In THE NABATAEANS, author-adventurer David Tschanz sheds new light on a subject that is at once dramatic and obscure; dramatic, because of the extraordinary and famous stone architecture of Petra and obscure because the record of the builders, the Nabataeans, is sparse and confusing. The author does a fine job of sorting fact from fiction and presenting this history in an enjoyable and well-organized fashion, with humor and a little panache. For Mr. Tschanz's considerable expertise and background, read the boiler-plate on the listing for this book. This work suffers, however, from spotty copy-editing ... none of which will interfere with your enjoyment of the read but all of which leads one to wonder if the editor was actually qualified for the job or paying attention to a marvelous text that really ought to have been honored with a much higher degree of diligence.