It's a difficult thing for a reviewer to present in a fair & adequate way a book which, in several editions, has been the standard work for about a generation in all German speaking countries & for those who have a reading knowledge of German. I shall limit myself therefore to a general description of it.
The present translation, elegantly printed & quite adequately reedited for the English speaking reader (e.g., English translations of German works have been duly introduced into the notes, where available), has been done on the last (4th, '62) German edition. It fills a long felt gap in the bibliography on the subject & will certainly occupy a place of honor in the syllabus of requested readings for students of Divinity & of Oriental disciplines alike. It's to be hoped that no clergy will lack this work in their private libraries.
Part 1 deals with the geography of Palestine; part 2 with Archeology (and here the American reader will have an unique opportunity of studying the thesis of A. Alt, K. Elliger & M. Noth 1sthand, without relying on representations); part 3 deals with "pertinent aspects of ancient Near Eastern history," while part 4 gives us an introduction to the Old Testament text (here, in Ch. III "Methods of textual critical work"). Several maps & illustrations, indexes for reference (an authors' index has been added in the English translation) make this book practical & easy for consultation. The only criticism the present reviewer would like to make is that the numbering of paragraphs is different between the original & the translation, without cogent reasons. It surely makes references more difficult to those who've already worked on the German original.