The Atlantis Syndrome

In The Atlantis Syndrome, Paul Jordan maps the invention, abandonment, and rediscovery of the concept of Atlantis from Plato's invention of Atlantis in his moral tale of the ruining of Athens, to the present day 'alternative archaeologies' which use his analogy as their foundation. Jordan argues that contemporary archaeology has gone far beyond the need for an Atlantis to explain the distant human past and outlines contemporary archaeological thinking about human evolution, prehistory and classical history and society. Ultimately he takes in turn several of the more popular books on the Atlantis theory and critically analyses their evidence and approach. In this way he effectively shoots down several modern heroes of the modern cult of Atlantology, looking at the underlying motivations for their writings. He also warns of the colonialist and missionary condescension' enshrined in their hyperdiffusionist ideas. This is a fascinating and much needed contextual analysis of the Atlantis Syndrome' and should be read by anyone interested in this subject.