Such is the peculiarity of my shelving structure that I must put all books by G. K. Chesterton on a shelf called 'modernist-era'. How did the very scourge of modernity in person end up on a such an oddly named shelf? Especially such a book as this, where he lays into everything modern with all his formidable eloquence. He is at his best at the beginning, critiquing contemporary unfounded speculation about primitive humankind. In this, he has very much been vindicated by events - palaeoanthropology has moved on, but failed to come to much consensus, while modernism has given way to post-modernism with its suspicion of grand narratives. On the other hand, he does somewhat ruin the effect by proceeding to indulge in several chapters' worth of unfounded speculation himself. I always find this aspect of Chesterton somewhat frustrating, and it makes me wonder what so many reasonable people see in him, but I think this is because I'm reading him wrong - he is not trying to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth all the time, but to use paradoxes to make the reader think through their assumptions.

The second part - 'On the Man Called Christ' - suffers from some of the same problems, but is generally much better. The way he tells the gospel narrative is beautiful and compelling.