The Atlantis Syndrome

by Paul Jordan

fact or fiction? Simply an invention, or an idea with some truth in it about our distant past? Has there ever been a superior civilization, lost to conventional archaeology, to which the rest of the world's cultures somehow owe their own origins? Spurred by the recent output of publications, television programmes and websites that encourage belief in the Atlantis idea, in this book a respected mainstream archaeological writer takes on the theories of the 'alternative archaeologists'.
The Atlantis Syndrome explores the whole concept of Atlantis from Plato's first references to it around 360 BC, when the story started life as a moral tale with strong reference to the sorry state of Plato's home city of Athens in a materialistic age. After the close of classical times, Atlantis was largely forgotten until the Renaissance, when, with the dawn of the great age of exploration, it became a way of interpreting new discoveries around the world, especially in the Americas.
The Atlantis idea has exercised its strange fascination ever since. All the theories of alternative archaeology, however diverse, continue to circle round the central idea of a lost ancient supercivilization of surpassing wisdom and prowess, whose survivors scattered themselves like seeds of enlightenment around the world after some prodigious catastrophe. Mysterious ancient texts in vanished languages, lost tribes, underwater roads and temples, cities buried beneath the Antarctic ice, sacred geometries all around the world, star maps in pyramid fields and flight paths of the 'gods': all these notions relate back to the Atlantis idea and are critically reviewed, author by author, in this book, to build up a diagnosis of the 'Atlantis Syndrome' of beliefs and attitudes so passionately maintained in many quarters in the face of orthodox archaeology and science. And, finally, if it turns out that Atlantis never existed after all and the entire set of theories associated with it cannot be sustained then we have the opportunity to find out in this book what might really have happened in the long course of human evolution and prehistory.

Genres: Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2001

About the author

I am an autistic celibate published author.

Reviews

[Andrew Fear · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is not so much the content as the style of this book that is a little wearing. I sympathise with Mr Jordan's position, but I suspect he would make very poor company. The book takes the entirely reasonable position that Plato's Atlantis is a philosophical fable and that to regard it as having been an actual physical place is a category mistake. I agree. The material could have been better arranged. It would have been good to have had a more detailed analysis of what Plato actually says at the beginning of the book (Mr Jordan seems to get bored of Plato rather quickly) and some ancient authors (who would often have helped Mr Jordan's case) are dropped in much later as after thoughts which is a bit of a shame. Mr Jordan comes over as an old, nineteenth century rationalist. This has its strengths, but his attempts to attack "religion" at every turn are tiresome and seem as much a personal obsession as any Atlantologist's ssearch for Atlantis. There is a rather shabby use of guilt by association. Some Nazis were indeed interested in Atlantis, but that doesn't mean most "Atlantologists" are nazi sympathisers which is at times implied here, any more than the fact that some Nazis were vegetarian makes vegetarianism necessarily a badge of neo-nazism. In fact, most new age types tend to have a rather left-wing bent. That could be said of Theosophy and Helena Blavatsky who are mentioned, but then rather conveniently forgotten when this argument comes along. All the usual shibboleths of the Manchester Guardian are to be found in this book. Mr Jordan is happy to stress that "Atlantology" is mainly a male province. Well, Madame Blavatsky was many things, but being male wasn't one of them, and Mr Jordan seems completely ignorant of the writings of Dion Fortune. It is also we are told the preserve of Europeans (a quick search on Amazon will produce a Chinese author....). Given that it is a European myth, should we really be surprised that it has attracted most interest in that continent? There are sunken continent myths in cultures around the world and it is a shame that there wasn't an analysis of them and their appeal rather than this rant. And, of course, by extension it naturally follows that Atlantology is a product of wicked colonialism.... Though smug and scarcastic about his subject matter (frankly I think it is more effective to let people condemn themselves out of their own mouths than add the sort of asides Mr Jordan can't resist here), Mr Jordan isn't quite as well informed as he thinks he is. Whatever Tartessos in Spain was, it wasn't a Phoenician colony as he asserts. It isn't quite the case that there "isn't a scrap" of evidence for Phoenicians reaching the Americas. The so-called Paraiba inscription was taken seriously by Cyrus Gordon who was a leading scholar in the field. I strongly suspect that Gordon was wrong to think it genuine, but the material does exist. Overall, this book is a defeat of substance by form. L Sprague de Camp's Lost Continents: Atlantis Theme in History, Science and Literature says all that is said here and says it better.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a witty debunking of the Atlantis mythos, somewhat along the lines of David Standish's The Hollow Earth, but quite a bit more scholarly. Jordan is rather unkind toward crackpot theorists like Graham Hancock, but considering how unkind Hancock and similar authors are about "mainstream" archaeologists, it's probably forgivable. Plus, you know, it's kind of hard NOT to mock people who think that humans came from a supercivilization that's now buried under the Antarctic icecap. My only wish is that Jordan had included more analysis as to WHY we're so consistently fascinated by the idea of Atlantis.

[MgochaM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kupiłam tę książkę dawno temu na fali dość oczywistych zainteresowań. Postawiłam książkę na półce, jak się okazało, na wiele lat. Mnogość teorii na temat zaginionego lądu nie dziwi, dziwi natomiast nagromadzenie wszelkiej maści absurdów w nich pomieszczonych wynikających z niedouczenia ich twórców, chcących za wszelką cenę dowieść swoich racji. Autor rozprawia się z niemającymi nic wspólnego z nauką hipotezami ostro, czasami ironicznie, a czasami dobrotliwie punktując niedoróbki, podając fakty.
W książce znajdziemy dużo historycznych ciekawostek, wiele informacji na temat odkryć archeologicznych oraz zarys dziejów ludzkości z konieczności potraktowany skrótowo, ponieważ dotyczy obszarów czasowych ważnych dla atlantologii. Miłośnicy tej ostatniej poczują się wywodami Autora rozczarowani, dla mnie była to interesująca oraz inspirująca do dalszych poszukiwań lektura (niekoniecznie na temat Atlantydy), napisana żywym, lekkim piórem.

[molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely an interesting read but I wish it was a bit more about Atlantis and the stories around it instead of kinda insulting these, yes, at times delusional, writers for their books and opinions. I would like for Atlantis to be real, that would be dope, but I do agree with the writer that there's no archeological or other types of evidence to back it up, but like... Yeah, I definitely liked the book though, I guess I just wanted certain parts to be longer, like the early chapters about Plato's Atlantis, and other parts to be a bit shorter.

[Suze Geuke]

laat ik eerlijk zijn, ik ga dit boek echt nevernooitniet uitlezen... ben met moeite tot twee derde gekomen omdat archeologie op zichzelf staand erg interessant is, maar de toon van paultje komt me zo de neus uit. ~vroeger dachten mensen dingen en dat was stom, dat waren allen dommerds, want wij weten nu toch zoveel meer en accurater!~

hoe je een boek over een mythologische, denkbeeldig onderwatergelopen stad met alle bijbehorende alternatieve theorieën - maar dan ook echt - oersaai kan maken, dat is pas knap.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 1 out of 5]

The blurb about this book portrays it as 'a fascinating account of the origins of the Atlantis myth' and to be fair, it does start off like this. After opening with an extract from Jules Verne, I had huge hopes for this book, and read the first chapter avidly, as it discusses the first mentions of the lost island in the works of Plato.

Sadly, it then very quickly degenerate into a wholesale rant against anyone, in any time from the past or present, who dares believe that Atlantis was real! Don't get me wrong, I believe that everyone has their own opinion, but if you're going to have the courage to publish it, at least it should be presented in a rational way, maybe with some evidence to back it up, and just not repeating the same old thing again and again.

I don't think the author is wrong, just that how he puts things came across (to me anyway) as condescending and rather sad. And as for blaming writers on the past for their views just being a product of their times - well, yeah! Ranting about a 19th century English writer seeing the world in views of colonisation and civilising of the savage, is a bit like blaming a cow for believing grass is the best food in existence! Of course they know nothing different, but it's hardly their fault!

By the fourth chapter, I'm afraid I'd had enough. When the author repeated the same scathing opinion of an author for the fourth time in as many paragraphs, I decided I didn't want to read anymore.

Give me a nice conspiracy theory or 'alternative archaeology' concept any day!