Witness from the Grave - Hardcover

Christopher Joyce; Eric Stover

3.94

79 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747505187 ISBN 13: 9780747505181

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1991

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Clyde Snow is a practitioner of forensic anthroplogy. He is employed by police forces and governments in every continent to identify human remains, to interpret the "signatures" in skeletons that are as good as fingerprints in distinguishing one individual from another. Over the last two decades, forensic anthropologists have extended their field of activity from police morgues and air-crash sites to the political arena. Among Snow's most celebrated cases have been the Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, the victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, the soldiers who died with General Custer at Little Big Horn in 1876 and the thousands in Argentina who "disappeared" under the military junta. This book is a scientific study in which the adventures of Clyde Snow are interwoven with an exploration of the techniques used in the Mengele investigation and in criminal and political cases all over the world. It reads like a detective story and at the same time traces the dramatic advances that have been made in forensic methodology.

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From the Inside Flap:

quot;Sherlock Holmes of bones," Clyde Snow is a forensic anthropologist who solves murders with a tape measure and calipers. He has participated in some of the most sensational investigations of recent years, and WITNESSES FROM THE GRAVE is his engaging, engrossing story.

It was Clyde Snow who traveled to Brazil to examine the skeletal remains of the infamous and elusive Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Snow also discovered intriguing new evidence about what lies beneath the battleground of Custer's Last Stand at Little Bighorn. He identified the victims of Illinois serial killer John Wayne Gacy, and he was the driving force in the tireless search for "the disappeared" from Argentina's "dirty war" of the 1970s.

More than an expertly spun scientific and political thriller, WITNESSES FROM THE GRAVE is a book of vital importance to anyone concerned with the issues of human rights, criminal justice, and the accuracy of our historical memory.

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From Publishers Weekly:

Forensic anthropology is a relatively new science of identifying the nameless dead solely on the basis of their bones. Tracing the career of one of the field's foremost practitioners, Texan Clyde Snow, Joyce, an editor of New Scientist , and Stover, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, here present a history of the discipline and explain its techniques. Among Snow's cases are those of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, who reportedly drowned in Brazil; General Custer, whose remains were supposedly transferred to West Point but are probably still in Montana, according to the authors; and many of the "disappeared" murdered by the military regimes in Argentina. Those interested in archeology, anthropology, the history of science and criminal investigation will find this study of the "archivists of death" vastly interesting and awe-inspiring. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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