Empirico-Statistical Analysis of Narrative Material and its Applications to Historical Dating, Vol. 2: The Analysis of Ancient and Medieval Records [Hardcover]

A.T. Fomenko (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0792326059 | ISBN-13: 978-0792326052 | Publication Date: December 31, 1993 | Edition: 1

These two volumes which concern mathematical statistical chronology represent a major, unique work and are the first of its kind published in the English language.
A comprehensive set of mathematical and statistical techniques is presented for the analysis of chronological data. These include, as main tool, the means to compare texts and other sequential data and the ability to judge them in terms of similarity and, hence, closeness. These techniques constitute a new important trend in applied statistics.
Volume I concentrates mainly on the development of the mathematical statistical tools and their application to astronomical data, including the Almagest and simulated data (to test the validity of the methods). Substantial material dealing with historical data and chronology is also included.
Volume II concentrates on the application of these tools to narrative texts and ancient and medieval records (such as Egyptian, Byzantine, Roman, Greek, Babylonian, etc.). An astonishing wealth of historical data is considered. The conclusions which are drawn concerning the accepted chronological dating of events in ancient history will certainly provoke controversy and serious debate. These two volumes provide the necessary background and material for intelligent participation in such debates.
For statisticians, historians, astronomers, archaeologists, and others with an interest in the integrity of historical dating and the means to analyze this.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English
Original Language: Russian --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 472 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (December 31, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0792326059
• ISBN-13: 978-0792326052
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,113,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Heavy going, unsettling, and extremely thought-provoking, July 23, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Empirico-Statistical Analysis of Narrative Material and its Applications to Historical Dating: Volume I: The Development of the Statistical Tools ... The Analysis of Ancient and Medieval Records (Hardcover)

This book, and its companion volume, represent fairly unidiomatic translations (from the Russian) of a long series of papers that explore various statistical techniques used by the author and his colleagues to delve into the subject of historical chronology -- i.e. the "science" of dating historical events. The going can be heavy because many of the papers are written in mathematicalese ("Let" statement . . . "Then" statement . . . "It follows that" . . . etc."), there is a lot of duplication of information because each was written to stand on its own, and there is a frustrating lack of summing up because the conclusions defy definitive conclusion. Nevertheless, the mathematical methods look sound (to a mathematically literate non-mathematician) and the hypotheses will turn your world upsidedown. To wit: We can't trust the dating of any historical event that happened before the 14th or 15th century; that whole sequences of! events in the historical record may be mistranscriptions of other sequences of events (the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, for instance); that history is thus much compressed from what we have learned since kindergarten, and civilization could be much younger than we believe. Because these lines of inquiry (the non-mathematical ones) began in the early days of the Soviet Union, one may be suspicious about ulterior (political) motives, and some independent verifying of some of the accepted "facts" is called for. But this raises more questions about the knowability of history than it can possibly attempt to answer, and it does plunge one headlong into the mysteries of the now ignored study of historical chronology. We've used the same temporal scaffolding for centuries without recently examining its foundation. Maybe its time for a new look. Turgid going, but dizzying implications.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mathematics against the fraud in history, December 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Empirico-Statistical Analysis of Narrative Material and its Applications to Historical Dating, Vol. 2: The Analysis of Ancient and Medieval Records (Hardcover)

First of all, the price for this English edition of Fomeko's book on chronology is too high, but that's a common practice to price high monographs in math (simply, it's assumed that nobody except few sepecialists in the area would ever read them), so I read this book in Russian. But, this is not a math book in usual sense. Russian is not my first language, so I had plenty of trouble reading this book but it was worthy of my effort. It is an excelent example how mathematics and statistics enter new areas to examine their accuracy and correctness. Traditionally, math-free history enjoyed lots of flexibility in presenting its descriptions of historical events. History, as we know, may sometimes be incorrect, but how incorrect can it be? According to Fomenko the magnitude of this incorrectness is so massive that it is simply shocking. He supports his claims by mathematical and statistical methods - i.e. scientific methods which became a new exciting area of the applied mathematics. Some of the most shocking statements of Fomenko are related to the global chronology of historical events. Simply, he claims that our history was extended artificially (by mistake or intentionally) by about 1000 year. That means, it's not the year 2000 but the year 1000. In order to learn how these claims were made, the reader should read the books by Fomenko devoted the global chronology of historical events.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I find this book most amazing one I ever have read., January 8, 2001

By 

sedinkin (Rochester NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Empirico-Statistical Analysis of Narrative Material and its Applications to Historical Dating, Vol. 2: The Analysis of Ancient and Medieval Records (Hardcover)

I find this book most amazing one I ever have read. If you read this book carefully you will be impressed how many things we take for granted and without any critique. You will be surprised how subtle and non-reliable is the building of modern history and chronology. To read this book is more interesting than any novel of Steven King.