Lost Continents

by L. Sprague de Camp

Book Overview

A leading authority examines the facts and fancies behind the Atlantis theme in history, science, and literature. Sources include the classical works from which Plato drew his proposal of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486226689
• ISBN13: 9780486226682
• Release Date: June 1970
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 348 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A Fascinating and well-researched study of Atlantis

Unless your religion requires that you believe in Atlantis, you will find that De Camp presents powerful arguments against the crackpot claims about Atlantis. He tells a compelling history that is supported by the solid scholarship that is often lacking in many books on Atlantis. You will find yourself amazed at the forgotten history that De Camp uncovers, such as the following: "One contributor to this stream of speculation was Francis Wilford, who in 1805 advanced an Atlanto-Druidic hypothesis according to which the British Isles were a remnant of a former Atlantic continent where the events of the Old Testament had actually taken place (and not in Palestine as most people thought)" (p. 187). De Camp gives the following caution that the crackpots will never accept: "Myths and legends, then, do often have a basis of fact. But the factual part of the myth may be so small and muddled that you cannot possibly reconstruct history from the legend. As the historian Grote said: `The lesson must be learnt, hard and painful thought it may be, that no imaginable reach of the critical acumen will of itself enable us to discriminate fancy from realty, in the absence of a tolerable stock of evidence" (p. 250). See also my five-star reviews of "Lost Tribes and Sunken Continents: Myth and Method in the Study of the American Indians," by Robert Wauchope, and "The Mound Builders: The Archaeology of a Myth," by Robert Silverberg. Click on the following links and scroll down: Lost Tribes and Sunken Continents Myth Method in the Mound Builders Your comments--positive or negative--on my reviews are appreciated. Thanks.

Geography, myth, and history!

L. Sprague de Camp does a masterful job of refuting the Atlantis legend. His descriptions of geography are easily understood by the average reader.