Imagining Atlantis [Paperback]

Richard Ellis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 1999

Ever since Plato created the legend of the lost island of Atlantis, it has maintained a uniquely strong grip on the human imagination. For two and a half millennia, the story of the city and its catastrophic downfall has inspired people--from Francis Bacon to Jules Verne to Jacques Cousteau--to speculate on the island's origins, nature, and location, and sometimes even to search for its physical remains. It has endured as a part of the mythology of many different cultures, yet there is no indisputable evidence, let alone proof, that Atlantis ever existed. What, then, accounts for its seemingly inexhaustible appeal?

Richard Ellis plunges into this rich topic, investigating the roots of the legend and following its various manifestations into the present. He begins with the story's origins. Did it arise from a common prehistorical myth? Was it a historical remnant of a lost city of pre-Columbians or ancient Egyptians? Was Atlantis an extraterrestrial colony? Ellis sifts through the "scientific" evidence marshaled to "prove" these theories, and describes the mystical and spiritual significance that has accrued to them over the centuries. He goes on to explore the possibility that the fable of Atlantis was inspired by a conflation of the high culture of Minoan Crete with the destruction wrought on the Aegean world by the cataclysmic eruption, around 1500 b.c., of the volcanic island of Thera (or Santorini).

A fascinating historical and archaeological detective story, Imagining Atlantis is a valuable addition to the literature on this essential aspect of our mythohistory.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Richard Ellis is obsessed with all things Atlantic, and he's written a number of books on the Atlantic Ocean's inhabitants and legends. Of all the stories to be found in this big sea, the lost civilization of Atlantis has been the hallucinogenic focus of passionate scholarship--why is that? Ellis writes, "Whether its source was extraterrestrial, prehistorical, or imaginary, Atlantis, unique among the Western world's myths, has become a part of our mythohistory."

In Imagining Atlantis, Ellis turns his eye to the oceanic legend that has captured the imagination of countless people, forming the basis for archaeological expeditions, historical analyses, mystical revelations, and even extraterrestrial influence. The book's first chapter, entitled "What Plato Said," relates the story in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias that started the enduring hunt for a land lost beneath the sea: "There was an island opposite the strait which you call ... the Pillars of Heracles, an island larger than Libya and Asia combined," wrote Plato. He went on to describe in ostentatious detail the civilization of Atlantis, its buildings, commerce and people--and how it was "swallowed up by the sea and vanished."

Ellis traces the conclusions of the most persistent theories of the 2,000 or so scholarly works "proving" that what Plato meant was, variously, the island of Santorini, Palestine, the Peloponnesian town of Helice, the Americas, or something more bizarre. Ellis's treatment of the multitudes of Atlantean researchers is thorough, respectful, and interested, no matter which of Desmond Lee's Atlantis response categories they fall into: crazy, geological, or historical. He follows the theories of scientists, archaeologists, mystics, and science fiction authors to their conclusions with equanimity. After outlining these theories, suggestions, and delusions, Ellis leads the reader ineffably toward the firm conclusion that Plato invented Atlantis. Plato himself would probably be either alarmed or amused that his fiction has been the subject of so much inquiry and emotion. Perhaps the philosopher--looking around for real places to write about--found that he needed a utopia to show what a civilization could be. --Therese Littleton --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Marine painter and explorer Ellis (Deep Atlantic) has produced a gracefully written, authoritative debunking of the myth of a "lost continent" of Atlantis. He regards Plato's tale of the flood-related destruction of a wondrous city as a parable on the demise of Periclean Athens, perhaps also as Plato's commentary on the plague that killed one of every four Athenians between 430 and 425 B.C. Tracing the snowballing of this legend in the writings of Sir Francis Bacon, Edward Cayce, Charles Berlitz and others, Ellis dismantles the Atlantean scenarios of occultists and New Agers, as well as the dubious claims of oceanographers, geologists, archeologists and historians who, on the slenderest evidence, have attempted to link Plato's fabled Atlantis with the destruction of Minoan Crete, the volcanic explosion of the island of Thera around 1450 B.C. or other putative sites of lost civilizations. He also examines Atlantis lore in movies, television, science fiction and tourism. Ellis's plausible interpretation of Atlantis as a myth of greed and retribution, a utopian fable adapted by successive cultures to suit their needs, makes his odyssey through the muddy shoals of Atlantean scholarship worthwhile. Photos.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 322 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Vintage Books ed edition (August 10, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375705821
• ISBN-13: 978-0375705823
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.9 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #117,142 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #45 in Books > History > Europe > Greece

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good content, weak structure, December 2, 2004

By 

Daniel Gunter (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Imagining Atlantis (Hardcover)

Ellis's "Imagining Atlantis" is a decidedly mixed bag. On the one hand, he provides a helpful overview of a great many theories regarding Atlantis, and he makes a fairly strong argument for his opinion that Atlantis was nothing more--and nothing less--than Plato's creation, woven from a number of preexisting strands and Plato's own imagination and purposes. As a former adherent of the Minoan explanation, I was surprised to find myself nodding along with Ellis's conclusions.

Unfortunately, Ellis's valuable content is severely hampered by the surprisingly weak structure of the work. This book could have benefited from a thorough reorganization. The argument ebbs and flows, sometimes flowing back on itself. Transitions are often weak and sometimes virtually nonexistent, with nothing more than a paragraph break to signal the appearance of a new topic. Serious editing might also have caught other errors. (For example, Ellis situates Mount St. Helens 200 hundred miles south of Mount Mazama/Crater Lake; in fact, Mount St. Helens is about 200 miles north of Crater Lake.) As a former book editor, I can say that editing this work would have been a significant task--but it was well within the capabilities of a good editor, and it should have had that treatment.

Let me also add that potential readers must treat some of the reviews here with care. Ellis does not admire Ignatius Donnelly; in fact, he treats him almost scornfully. I think that, if one listens carefully, one will hear the distinct sound of axes being ground in some of these reviews. In particular, this work will not appeal to those interested in the paranormal, UFOs, and the like. But it should appeal to those who are interested in the history of ideas.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting subject, but nothing new or convincing., September 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Imagining Atlantis (Hardcover)

The author asserts that the well-known theory that the Atlantis myth was inspired by the explosion of the volcano at Santorini and the demise of Minoan Crete is unjustified and that the whole thing is a moral tale by Plato. He may well be right in that, but his arguments are not more convincing than those he criticizes. Moreover, the book is badly structured, with the same things repeated chapter after chapter, and some of them totally superfluous (Movies about Atlantis?) The author's classical history is also weak: in particular his account of the Peloponnesian War is full of errors. A prescindible book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Harmless and derivative, April 26, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Imagining Atlantis (Paperback)

I agree with the reader who said that this book is mostly harmless (and dry), but having just finished the book "Lost Continents" by L. Sprague de Camp, and having read this one a month or two before, I am struck by how many ideas this author borrowed from de Camp. Except for the material on Santorini, almost all the examples Ellis uses to dispute Atlantis were used in de Camp's book, which also cites them in more detail, which was published in 1954. Ellis credits de Camp in his bibliography, but, except for Santorini and the chapter on Atlantis in the movies, there is vere little material in here that wasn't in the book "Lost Continents."