125 of 155 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't review if you haven't read, February 3, 2005
This review is from: History: Fiction or Science? (Paperback)
You learned history when you were a young lad from someone who learned it from someone who..... but who started it all?
What's wrong with asking this question? Some people would burn Mr. Fomenko at the stake for saying the Earth isn't flat.
I bought this book as a novelty but I ended up being quite impressed with it. I wouldn't say I'm totally sold on all the crazy ideas Mr. fomenko puts out but they certainly are more plausable than you might think. He does a thorough job of showing how early "historians" were really working for the pope. Most were monks with limited resources, personal and religious agendas, and a willingness to fudge it whenever they didn't know (or like) the truth. You'll be amazed at how meticulously he presents his evidence that the dark ages were so dark because they never happened. Your head will probably start to ache when you get to the section where he analyzes historical timelines statistically (at least mine did). However, the parallels truly are startling.
The first four chapters alone are worth the price of the book. Even if you don't believe any of it I'm sure you will at least question why we take the foundations of historical knowledge so seriously without solid justification. There's more to this book than you could know without actually reading it!
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112 of 139 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Pretty Wild Theory, February 22, 2005
This book presents a wildly radical restructuring of the timeline of world history. It is written by an outsider to the world of historical scholarship: Fomenko is a non-historian (a renowned mathematician) and an non-Westerner (from Russia.)
Fomenko's theory says, basically, that everything we are told about history pre-1600 is BS. Ancient history is, according to Fomenko, based on evidence quote-unquote "discovered" since the 15th century and arranged into a spurious standard timeline in the 18th century. (In some cases, the evidence was discovered much more recently: some Eastern religious texts were only uncovered in the 20th century.) Fomenko collates this evidence to argue that all those ancient chronicles are different versions of events which really happened roughly between 1000 AD and 1400 AD. The key event in Fomenko's timeline is the life of Christ (who was born in 1053 AD rather than 6BC, Fomenko believes.) After a relatively short-lived Eurasian empire disintegrated, each nation made up their own version of the empire's history, and generally each new version of the story was set farther back into the past than the previous one. (The newest version is the Hindu Krishna myth which is set about 10,000 years before the present day.)
This is an appealing theory, since it eliminates the various "dark ages" which blemish the conventional chronology. On the other hand, this is an appalling theory, since it creates one big dark age extending from the beginning of time till 900 AD or so.
The book is translated from the Russian. There is no index, and the bibliography is rather annoyingly arranged in the original Russian alphabetical order (so for example, B's and V's are mixed together.) But the translation is extremely readable, more readable than most historical works originally written in English.
This is the first book in a projected 7-volume set.
The online bookstore entries for this volume rather amusingly show easily history gets mixed up. The translator is someone named Michael Jagger who is almost certainly not the singer Mick Jagger (whose full name is Michael Phillip Jagger.) However, some online bookstores do list Mick Jagger as a coauthor. Amazon.com says the translator is someone named Mike Jagupov. This is hard enough to keep straight while the singer is still alive, and a few decades from now, I am sure that many sources will say that the legendary Rolling Stones frontman translated this book into English.
(I have no idea if Mick Jagger speaks Russian or not. Although he is an educated man--- an alumnus of the University of London--- one would assume that he doesn't. Certainly, in all the millions of words which have been written about him, no one has commented on his knowledge of the Russian language. And, if he actually was the person who translated this controversial text into English, the book's publishers would presumably be aggressively advertising that fact.)
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49 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Pseudohistory at its Worst, June 12, 2011
The only conspiracies here have to do with the number of insanely positive reviews. There are twenty(!) here where the reviewer only has one review to their name and it's a five-star review for this book. And more coming. Funny that. It's almost like somebody has set up multiple accounts and is trying to up the rating. Two with no other reviews may be coincidence. But twenty? Twenty! Good job buddy. Very subtle. You might as well have just copied and pasted your review.
So, I'm not a mathematician and I don't know enough to contradict Fomenko's math, but I don't have to. By that reasoning Fomenko wouldn't be able to contradict me because I'm a Classical History Major and this is (ostensibly) a History book. I can tell you exactly why his math must be wrong and why he should be ashamed to call himself a scientist. Scientists must make the models match the data, not the other way round. When the facts don't fit your theory then the problem isn't with the facts, it's with your theory. And boy do the facts not fit this 'theory.' It would be hard to think of a way in which history could make less sense than it does through his model.
First, a brief explanation for anyone not familiar with this book. Anatoly Fomenko is a Doctor of Mathematics at Moscow State University. Despite a lack of support from his colleagues (who consider his ideas on history nuts) he published a series of seven books in which he rewrote the history of the world based on his ideas of Statistics. As explained on the back cover, "Jesus Christ was born in 1053 A.D. and crucified in 1086 A.D. The Old Testament refers to mediaeval events. Apocalypse was written after 1486 A.D." I'll go more into why he thinks that makes sense later. The Roman Empire and all of Classical civilization was invented by Jesuit monks who wrote in a remarkably short time all of Western literature and invented an entire civilization which people then immediately forgot never existed. All Classical buildings are simply medieval ones that have been misdated.
And now a brief history of... well history, as seen through Fomenko-vision: History begins when Andronicos Comnenos dies and becomes Jesus. History records him as an unsuccessful Greek emperor with no real successes who was beaten to death by the mob and not a poor prophet from Nazareth who was crucified but hey, what do they know. It's not like the crucifixion was an important part of the story or anything. Immediately all of Europe decides that they're Christian and march against the Muslims. It may sound confusing why they'd blame the Muslims for what was an internal coup but they were probably just confused because Mohammed wasn't born yet. At some point they changed their minds and decided to skip the first three crusades and jump straight onto the Fourth (except that they didn't. It was actually the same as the First. Obviously. Please try and keep up). They then sacked Constantinople which was also Rome which was Troy which was Jerusalem. At some point they get confused and occupied the Holy Land as well and then forget all about Constantinople and let it fall back to the Greeks since Jerusalem was now Constantinople which was Troy which was Rome. People back then had very short memories often forgetting why they did something before they even did it. Very sad. During the First Crusade the Greeks decide to avenge the kidnapping of their queen by... also sacking Constantinople. After sacking their own city they quietly vanish for a few years, probably in embarrassment. Some time later Erasmus wrote the New Testament confusing generations of scholars who wondered what they had been copying out for all that time. Having now written a New Testament it was decided that they needed an Old one. I'm sure the reasons for the reversed order are as obvious to everyone else as they are to Fomenko. Some time in the 15th Century David rose up, except that he was Turkish and ruled in Constantinople. Despite the many wars with the Turks Europe had never warred with the Turks and accepted all of these events as holy writ. After all, the Turks were really Russian in funny hats and the Russians ruled the world. The Byzantines were secretly ruling in England. After the death of Solomon (Suleimon) the Jews split off from Christianity because they were tired of not being persecuted because of something they didn't do and decided that being hunted by the Inquisition was more fun. In the confusion the Catholics and Orthodox Christians split apart as well because everyone else was doing it and it seemed a good idea at the time. They were to regret this later when the Catholics sacked their city but that had already happened so it was fine.
It turns out that Russia has dominated the world since the earliest recorded history (what nationality was Fomenko again?). The Mongols were not from Mongolia because the people there are nothing but worthless servants of the Russian Empire (it's ok. Fomenko assures us that the Mongols never knew of Genghis Khan until some pesky monks told them that they used to rule the world). Russia was actually the major Empire that the Romans were based off of and have existed since the dawn of civilization. Silly Georgians thinking they are anything but the personal property of Russia! Ha ha. They also controlled America, Europe and North Africa by 1300 so I guess that we should all submit to the Russian yoke as is our hereditary duty. Occasionally a czar would allow the governors of Europe (kings hah!) to wage war on each other if they pleased him. Presumably the English sucked up to him better than France which is why they did so well in the Hundred Years War but then lost his favor again which resulted in the French winning. Joan of Arc was probably the czar's sister or something. The czar could summon anyone to his court and they had to obey which is why Moscow is renowned the world over as being filled with better artwork and architecture than such dives as Paris and Rome (which isn't the REAL Rome after all). After Russia fell in the 1600s (through internal troubles. No one could EVER conquer Russians) the rest of the world immediately conspired to hide that they ever existed lest they should try to rule over them again. Thus they erased this empire from the history books and replaced it with such lies as Rome and the Holy Roman Empire (couldn't they even pick a new name? Obvious!). Thus the treacherous Romanovs rose to power (did I mention that he first published this under the Soviets?) and they too decided to forget there had ever been a Russian Empire of such a scale. Many "Roman" documents are simply Russian ones with a few name changes. I'm not sure where Latin came from but the Russians probably invented it to confuse future generations of schoolkids. They had after all had it engraved all over the southern part of their empire on specific styles of buildings which they immediately buried and built medieval cities on top of to confuse archaeologists. It never showed up in Russia itself. Perhaps they punished the provinces by making them write everything in Latin. Oh those cruel Russians. After the late 18th Century things begin to return to what is normally called history.
As you can see it is far less confusing than the 'conventional' timeline. You might think I'm making this up but that is what you get when you put all his history together. Minus the sarcasm perhaps.
It seems best to explain why he is wrong about the facts he lists before going into the facts that he's ignoring. First off comes a good example of how he combines Classical and Medieval history together. To him the First Crusade and the Trojan War are the same event. One of Fomenko's favorite tools, a chart, might demonstrate why this is.
Simularities:
First Crusade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..| Trojan War
A war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..| A war
Sieges involved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .| All about a siege
East vs. West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .| East vs. West
Um, took place on the planet earth . . . . . . . . . . .| Probably the same if it happened at all...
The differences:
First Crusade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..| Trojan War
Lead by Bohemund, Raymond, Geoffrey, etc. . . . ..| Led by Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus, etc. (No matching names)
Fought for religious reasons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .| Fought for political/personal reasons
Traveled by land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..| Traveled by sea
Leaders fought on horseback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .| Leaders arrived on chariots, fought on foot
Weapons: lances, spears, iron swords, chain mail ..| Weapons: spears, bronze swords, bronze greaves
All participants monotheist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..| All participants polytheist
Came from all over Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .| Came from Greece
Lasted three years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .| Lasted ten years
Went to recover city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..| Went to destroy city and recover wife
Set up a kingdom on enemy land . . . . . . . . . . . . .| Immediately returned home
Leaders became kings and lords of new land . . . . ..| Leaders offend the gods and are punished
Archaeology confirms presence in Israel . . . . . . . ..| Archaeology confirms presence in Greece
Mentioned the Trojan War in documents . . . . . . . .| Was the Trojan War...
As you can clearly see there is a great deal there fully justifying the combination of these two events as the same war. How could it not be?...
Clearly this idea is nuts and fails on any comparative level. There are almost no similarities between the two events except that they were both...
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