Customer Reviews

Lost Lands, Forgotten Realms: Sunken Continents, Vanished Cities, and the Kingdoms That History Misplaced

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Welsh in pre-Columbian Alabama? Ancient Amer-Indian Zuni language closely related to Japanese? Egyptian artifacts, including a river barge, in the Western US?

These are just a few intriguing factoids gleaned from Dr. Curran's research. This book is well-illustrated as well as annotated, so the curious reader can conduct his or her own studies.

He is less specific on the legendary sunken continents, but the intermingling of European and American Native populations more than compensates for this uneveness.

What you do miss in reading the book, is Dr. Curran's thick, but charming Irish brogue. This is mind-expanding material. Miss it at your own peril.

Any new age collection strong in ancient mythology will appreciate LOST LANDS, FORGOTTEN REALMS, a survey of legendary places that turn up in literature. Historian Dr. Bob Curran surveys world literature and famous mythic places from Shangri-La to Lemuria and the Hollow Hills, surveying the historical facts and legends surrounding them. Ian Daniels provides excellent illustrations throughout.

Not only is this book incredibly well written (as well as illustrated fantastically), the material presented is riveting. It's almost a magical experience reading about these well known and obscure lost lands alike. This is a light and breezy read, filled with an abundance of information without the dull and headache inducing jargon of a textbook.

I was simply not impressed with this book. To the book's credit I must say that the book covers a lot of territory and gives many starting points for further exploration, but while it covers much territory it doesn't provide much more information than one could obtain by doing a small amount of research on the internet. I bought the book because of an interest in the legend of Hi- Brasil - which is covered in the book. The book was a quick read, but left me wanting something with more depth. If you have little familiarity with the topic the book might be a good place to start - if you've been interested in the topic for a while and have already done some research , you might be disappointed as I was. I would recommend it to someone as a beginners guide.

I really enjoyed this book, but the author doesn't always go into enough detail for me. He introduces many theories (like vanishing Irish cities actually a reflection from somewhere else in the world) but he doesn't explain it much more, as if we should already know about it. Very interesting book, but like most books, it has its flaws.

Here is a look at the world's most famous lost places and a few you may not have known. There's a lot of fascinating detail here. A couple small points on biblical scholarship:

p. 38 He writes "fundamentalist Christians" think Eden wasn't a real, physical place on Earth. That must be an extremely minority view in Christianity, because most believe it was a physical place. See The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis.

p. 58 Author claims monks may have inserted tree mythology into gospels after meeting Norse. How's that possible when the gospels predate any meetings with the Norse? In any case, equating the cross with the tree, is stretching it a bit. The trees of Eden and widespread similar trees in the stories of other peoples seem to indicate a common ancestry, rather than anyone stealing ideas.

p. 75 Noah's Flood. Many scholars believe it was a massive, local flood in the Middle East that was the root of the flood accounts in various cultures. As with the trees, there seems to be a common event, not stealing of ideas. See again The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis.


p. 184 Author seems unaware that archaeologists discovered sites that match Sodom and Gomorrah. See The Stones Cry Out: What Archaeology Reveals About the Truth of the Bible.

This book was overpriced, and seriously could find more and better information on the internet then spending money on a book that was poorly written. Use the internet instead of buying this book.

Lost Lands, Forgotten Realms: Sunken Continents, Vanished Cities, and the Kingdoms That History Misplaced

It's hard to believe that anyone could take a topic as exciting as this one and create a boring book, but Dr. Curran succeeded in doing so. He is up on the current research, but the writing is too academic for the subject. It sounds as if he took a graduate research paper, removed the documentation, and left the text basically unchanged. He omitted the most famous story about the inundation of Ys, in which the king's daughter deliberately opened the flood gates, although he tiptoes around the story and almost but not quite includes it. Some of his material is out of the order appropriate for a popular book, although it is in the proper order for academic writing. Altogether, I was disappointed in this book. As I have bought it I'm keeping it rather than discarding it, and may read it again someday when stuck in bed after surgery, but if I had first read it in the library I wouldn't have bought a copy.

The author did an impeccable at researching the myths and lore that have fascinating people for ages. At the same time he never loses the magic and wonder of these stories. These book is for anyone who wants to know how these stories began, why they continue to be told, and how they are related to actual reality.

I barely started to read this book, but so far this has
been interesting to read I really could not put this
book down