Roy Stemman

An extremely weirdly composed book- it starts of with some mysterious early civilizations- Etruscans, Palmyra, Great Zimbabwe etc- in well written chapters.
And then, from historical fact, we suddenly move into the highly debatable continents of Atlantis, Mu and Lemuria. It's not even exactly an attempt to persuade the reader OF their existence; more of a history of the advocates of such theories. The author observes that one certain writer required an exceptional level of gullibility in his readers.
By now, all my interest was evaporating A lengthy consideration of Madame Blavatsky's description of the reptilian Lemurians with a 'third eye' was the straw that broke the camel's back. Abandoned four chapters before the end.
Great photos ...but life's too short to waste on unprovable imaginings...… (altro)

A somewhat odd book, in that it welds togther conventional histories of past civilisations (Ancient Egypt, the Khmer, Zimbabwe, the Etruscans, and others) and the fictional civilations of Atlantis, Mu and Lemuria.

The first six chapters are written by Van Zandt, comprising the generally accepted academic view, which were added to the previously published second half of the book,written by Stemman, founder of the London UFO Research Organisation.

To be fair, the 'evidence' for the fictional civilisations is assessed rationally and is largely debunked, with just a lingering soupçon of "but what if?" to keep the believers on board. And, as these theosophical imaginings and archeological flights of fancy have inspired some of my favourite sci-fi, fantasy and sword-and-sorcery books, I can't altogether condemn them.… (altro)