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Why Did It Have To Be Snakes: From Science to the Supernatural, The Many Mysteries of Indiana Jones
The Ultimate Indiana Jones Companion The true history, supernatural wonders, and mysteries of Indiana Jones
Could you really use a bullwhip to swing across a chasm? Or rip out a man’s heart without killing him? Was there a Shanghai mob in the 1930s—and did the Nazis have a real-life connection to the occult?
At last, here is the book that finally answers the Indiana Jones–related questions that have troubled you for years. It tells you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the history, culture, and science behind your favorite Indy scenes and settings. You’ll find out the truth about the Thuggees and their deadly practices, ancient death traps, the Well of Souls, Kali worship in India, the infamous bizarre banquet that included chilled monkey brains, the Sankara Stones, the Cross of Coronado, the Holy Grail, and more.
Get ready for adventure—and more than a few snakes—as you explore the secrets and stories of Indiana Jones and his world. The journey will take you around the globe and through history as you move from ancient Egypt to India, China, and the United States, and from Biblical times to the Spanish Conquest to World War II. You’ll also learn about Indiana himself, including the origins of his trademark fedora, leather jacket, and bullwhip. So why did it have to be snakes? Read the book and find out.
Could you really use a bullwhip to swing across a chasm? Or rip out a man’s heart without killing him? Was there a Shanghai mob in the 1930s—and did the Nazis have a real-life connection to the occult?
At last, here is the book that finally answers the Indiana Jones–related questions that have troubled you for years. It tells you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the history, culture, and science behind your favorite Indy scenes and settings. You’ll find out the truth about the Thuggees and their deadly practices, ancient death traps, the Well of Souls, Kali worship in India, the infamous bizarre banquet that included chilled monkey brains, the Sankara Stones, the Cross of Coronado, the Holy Grail, and more.
Get ready for adventure—and more than a few snakes—as you explore the secrets and stories of Indiana Jones and his world. The journey will take you around the globe and through history as you move from ancient Egypt to India, China, and the United States, and from Biblical times to the Spanish Conquest to World War II. You’ll also learn about Indiana himself, including the origins of his trademark fedora, leather jacket, and bullwhip. So why did it have to be snakes? Read the book and find out.
272 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2008
11 people are currently reading
85 people want to read
About the author
Lois H. Gresh
73 books141 followersLOIS H. GRESH is the New York Times Bestselling Author (6 times) and USA Today Bestselling Author (thrillers) of 30 books and more than 65 short stories. Look for SHERLOCK HOLMES VS. CTHULHU #1: THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEADLY DIMENSIONS (Titan Books, April 2017), the first in a new trilogy of Sherlock Holmes thrillers from England's premier publisher of all things Holmes, with Random House distribution in the USA. Lois’ books have been published in 22 languages. For five years, Lois was a staff book reviewer at scifi.com (now SYFY.com, the Science Fiction Cable Channel), and her work has been on national/international award ballots eight times. She is a frequent Guest of Honor Author at large fan conventions and has appeared on television series such as The History Channel’s Ancient Aliens and Batman Tech.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 24, 2017
Disappointing. I went in hoping for an Indy-in-leather-jacket-adventure through history, but instead got an Indy-in-tweed-coat-and-glasses lecture. It IS extremely educational, I guess, and I learned a lot. But considering its inspiration, it’s very flat and a very dry.
I did learn a lot. I got a great historical background or pre-40s archaeologists, and grave robbers like Belzoni, and the Nazi obsession with the occult. I learned more about the Thugee, the Holy Grail mythology, that Hatay (the country) was real in 1938 (!!!), and American Nazi’s far worse than Walter Donovan like Fritz Kuhn (this was probably the most illuminating chapter of the book for me, because I had no idea how embedded/accepted American Nazism WAS – and also the most depressing part of the book because it’s so topical).
I discovered that (apart from the religious myths like the Ark and Grail and Shankara stones, and heartripping/burning) most of the more outlandish stuff from the Indy trilogy ranges from feasible to unfeasible but not impossible. I discovered that U-boats mostly travelled on the surface. I discovered that a Shanghai to India route in 1935 could have happened. I discovered that huge boulders are more feasible than huge tarantulas in Peru, or more feasible that bullwhips supporting a man’s weight. And I discovered that in Hitler and Goebbels (“the era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end") Germany of 1938, there were, sadly, "No books of any importance left in Germany to burn".
Indy movie fans will recognise those references above. But hardcore Indy fans (or more pertinently HISTORY fans) may also get a (mild) kick outta the section in the book on the little seen Indiana Jones TV series – which was apparently a bit of a boring history lesion in ITSELF at times, but skimming this book gives a nice summary, touching on the background of the following luminaries (to name a few) and the likelihood of Indy encountering them (not impossible, yet again): Picasso, Freud, Al Capone, Yeats, Churchill, De Gaulle, The Red Baron, Mata Hari, Edith Wharton (Indy romanced the latter two!). Pancho Villa’s bit was probably the most interesting read for me, but I appreciate that the series kicked off with Laurence of Arabia and finished with Wyatt Earp. Neither as famous as Indiana Jones, of course, but definitely worthy…
I guess this book is ok. I just wish it had some spark and life and sense of fun and adventure and exuberance. But I suppose we’ve always got the movies for that…
7/10
I did learn a lot. I got a great historical background or pre-40s archaeologists, and grave robbers like Belzoni, and the Nazi obsession with the occult. I learned more about the Thugee, the Holy Grail mythology, that Hatay (the country) was real in 1938 (!!!), and American Nazi’s far worse than Walter Donovan like Fritz Kuhn (this was probably the most illuminating chapter of the book for me, because I had no idea how embedded/accepted American Nazism WAS – and also the most depressing part of the book because it’s so topical).
I discovered that (apart from the religious myths like the Ark and Grail and Shankara stones, and heartripping/burning) most of the more outlandish stuff from the Indy trilogy ranges from feasible to unfeasible but not impossible. I discovered that U-boats mostly travelled on the surface. I discovered that a Shanghai to India route in 1935 could have happened. I discovered that huge boulders are more feasible than huge tarantulas in Peru, or more feasible that bullwhips supporting a man’s weight. And I discovered that in Hitler and Goebbels (“the era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end") Germany of 1938, there were, sadly, "No books of any importance left in Germany to burn".
Indy movie fans will recognise those references above. But hardcore Indy fans (or more pertinently HISTORY fans) may also get a (mild) kick outta the section in the book on the little seen Indiana Jones TV series – which was apparently a bit of a boring history lesion in ITSELF at times, but skimming this book gives a nice summary, touching on the background of the following luminaries (to name a few) and the likelihood of Indy encountering them (not impossible, yet again): Picasso, Freud, Al Capone, Yeats, Churchill, De Gaulle, The Red Baron, Mata Hari, Edith Wharton (Indy romanced the latter two!). Pancho Villa’s bit was probably the most interesting read for me, but I appreciate that the series kicked off with Laurence of Arabia and finished with Wyatt Earp. Neither as famous as Indiana Jones, of course, but definitely worthy…
I guess this book is ok. I just wish it had some spark and life and sense of fun and adventure and exuberance. But I suppose we’ve always got the movies for that…
7/10
May 26, 2024
Un libro con datos, si, pero datos extraídos y recolectados de las fuentes más simples y explicados de forma poco imaginativa, con la wikipedia como fuente principal de la mayoría de textos.
Además la edición española está horriblemente mal traducida, con frases directamente incomprensibles, erratas flagrantes (las confusiones con el género de las palabras y errores con los demostrativos son constantes) y un estilo telegráfico insulso y repetitivo.
Además la edición española está horriblemente mal traducida, con frases directamente incomprensibles, erratas flagrantes (las confusiones con el género de las palabras y errores con los demostrativos son constantes) y un estilo telegráfico insulso y repetitivo.
January 2, 2020
Un libro sumamente interesante, lleno de datos sobre las películas de Indiana Jones que no tenía idea; en ocasiones siento que la autora entra en demasiada información sobre el tema y aburre pero ocurre pocas veces.
Tal vez esto haga que vuelva a verlas para notar esos pequeños detalles
Tal vez esto haga que vuelva a verlas para notar esos pequeños detalles
January 17, 2013
I mentioned previously that I love popular science, along with pop culture and history. I also LOVE anything to do with Indiana Jones! In fact, I’ve had a huge crush on Harrison Ford as long as I could remember thanks to the movies. When I found out about the existence of this marvelous book that promised to combine all of the mentioned interests of mine, I knew I had to get it and pronto! Basically the authors took all three original Indiana Jones movies and picked it apart for various factoids they wanted to discuss. As a result, we got ourselves a book that tries to answer questions like, Do gigantic rolling boulders really exist? or, Which famous archeologists of the past might have inspired Indy’s character?
When I started reading the book, however, I was getting an uneasy feeling that it did not exactly deliver on its promises. The first part was quite exciting, especially given the fact that it is based on my least favorite movie out of the three – Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I picked up a few very interesting facts and wrote down potential topics I would have liked to research more. I learned about Hiram Bingham who discovered Machu Picchu and whose autobiography on the event I would love to read. I also found out about Percy Harrison Fawcett, who was looking for a lost city in the Amazon that he referred to simply as “Z”, only to disappear forever in the jungle. The exciting tale even prompted me to put “The Lost City of Z” by Davis Grann on my to-be-read list. I would love to learn more about Roy Chapman Andrews who led expeditions to Gobi Desert and Mongolia and survived wild animals and bandits alike, all while making groundbreaking discoveries.
But the further I read, the less convincing the book sounded. It made me doubt the authors’ expertise when they repeatedly stated incorrect facts from the movies. In one such example, they were recalling a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where singer Willie Scott is running around the jungle terrified of different animals she encounters, while Indy and Short Round are arguing about cheating in a game of cards. The authors state that Willie mistook a python for an elephant trunk and, when realized her mistake, screamed in terror. In reality Willie never found out that the alleged trunk was actually a snake, but rather threw it off her shoulder as annoyance. If the authors were actual fans of the movie, they surely would have remembered the hilarious ending to one of the funniest scenes in The Temple of Doom. Instead, they just came off as incompetent writers hired to put together a book in time for the release of The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
And speaking of incompetence, Gresh and Weinberg mentioned in the book that they both worked as college instructors in the past. If so, why was the book so poorly put together? Many sentences are badly structured, facts are jumbled and sometimes repeated in one paragraph several times just by rephrasing them, and don’t get me started on research. Half through the book I decided to check out the bibliography and was horrified to find that most research came from Wikipedia and similar online resources. Isn’t the first thing that students are taught about research is to never use non-scholarly sources? I could get on Wiki myself, read a bunch of articles written by other nonprofessionals, sum it all up, and send it all out to a publisher for a nice paycheck. I wanted to see actual scientific research, but found pure speculation and tale-telling. Was it entertaining to read? Yes. Did I pick up a few ideas for further reading? Absolutely. Can I trust everything the book says? Not a chance. Good thing I borrowed it from the library, where it’s going to go back next week and never return.
When I started reading the book, however, I was getting an uneasy feeling that it did not exactly deliver on its promises. The first part was quite exciting, especially given the fact that it is based on my least favorite movie out of the three – Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I picked up a few very interesting facts and wrote down potential topics I would have liked to research more. I learned about Hiram Bingham who discovered Machu Picchu and whose autobiography on the event I would love to read. I also found out about Percy Harrison Fawcett, who was looking for a lost city in the Amazon that he referred to simply as “Z”, only to disappear forever in the jungle. The exciting tale even prompted me to put “The Lost City of Z” by Davis Grann on my to-be-read list. I would love to learn more about Roy Chapman Andrews who led expeditions to Gobi Desert and Mongolia and survived wild animals and bandits alike, all while making groundbreaking discoveries.
But the further I read, the less convincing the book sounded. It made me doubt the authors’ expertise when they repeatedly stated incorrect facts from the movies. In one such example, they were recalling a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where singer Willie Scott is running around the jungle terrified of different animals she encounters, while Indy and Short Round are arguing about cheating in a game of cards. The authors state that Willie mistook a python for an elephant trunk and, when realized her mistake, screamed in terror. In reality Willie never found out that the alleged trunk was actually a snake, but rather threw it off her shoulder as annoyance. If the authors were actual fans of the movie, they surely would have remembered the hilarious ending to one of the funniest scenes in The Temple of Doom. Instead, they just came off as incompetent writers hired to put together a book in time for the release of The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
And speaking of incompetence, Gresh and Weinberg mentioned in the book that they both worked as college instructors in the past. If so, why was the book so poorly put together? Many sentences are badly structured, facts are jumbled and sometimes repeated in one paragraph several times just by rephrasing them, and don’t get me started on research. Half through the book I decided to check out the bibliography and was horrified to find that most research came from Wikipedia and similar online resources. Isn’t the first thing that students are taught about research is to never use non-scholarly sources? I could get on Wiki myself, read a bunch of articles written by other nonprofessionals, sum it all up, and send it all out to a publisher for a nice paycheck. I wanted to see actual scientific research, but found pure speculation and tale-telling. Was it entertaining to read? Yes. Did I pick up a few ideas for further reading? Absolutely. Can I trust everything the book says? Not a chance. Good thing I borrowed it from the library, where it’s going to go back next week and never return.
Read
August 6, 2011being a HUGE fan of the indiana jones series this book had great appeal to me, but a non-fan would obviously be advised to steer clear. the book explains the facts behind all the historical figures, locations and myths throughout the first 3 films and the later TV series (it was published before the 4th film was released, but there is a short history on crystal skulls). not too in-depth and a pretty easy yet informative read. it's kind of like a literary version of mythbusters meets the history channel
January 25, 2016
Why Did It Have To Be Snakes? From Science to the Supernatural: The Many Mysteries of Indiana Jones by Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg (John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2008) (791.4375) explores and explains "...the true history, supernatural wonders, and mysteries of Indiana Jones." It deals with the outlandish and supernatural elements of each Indiana Jones movie such as "the Staff of Ra", "the Well of the Souls", and Nazi interest in the supernatural. My rating: 6/10, finished 3/7/12.
June 3, 2009
If I can't use Wikipedia for a high school paper, the authors, who have "taught college classes" certainly may not use it for a published book. Poor references to the movies, and generally a boring read. Fail.
October 4, 2009
The movies open a pandora's box of historical questions, which the writers give short answers to. Very interesting to see where research meets creativity.
May 21, 2015
Целевая аудитория - явно американские тинейдежры, которых на интересе к фильму можно побудить узнать что-то еще из истории других стран.
February 1, 2016
Loved the book. Gave it four stars because some of his facts were inaccurate but still fun to read!!!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews