In 1957 John Mulvaney remarked that Childe was probably the most prolific and the most translated Australian author. Now, post mortem, he must be the one currently attracting the most intense discussion. These three books, taken together, enable us to see Childe rather more completely, both as an individual scholar and as an academic in the general context of his time. To some extent it is possible to 'round him off', and to answer certain questions about him and his work. But this process opens up other more profound questions, mostly concerning his philosophy, which bear on the history of British archaeology, and are not really answered from the large amount of information, interpretation and comment now available on one of the greatest prehistorians of the first half of this century.