Although the books on this list were not written to support a discussion of science fiction topics, reading the topics analyzed in these works allows us to understand the right way to think and consider the topics presented in these books, when we find them used in stories of science fiction or discussed in science fiction genre explanations.
CHRISTOPHER LASCH
The true and only heaven. Progress and its critics
(W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London - 1991)
[edizione italiana]
Il paradiso in terra. Il progresso e la sua critica
(Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore Milano - 1992)
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Progress is a recurring theme in science fiction stories. This is a theme that can concern the future of humanity on Earth or even explain the ways in which extraterrestrial aliens have reached levels of civilization superior to ours.
In both cases, civil progress is a long journey, undertaken by numerous peoples of the same planet, which spans different forms of civilization over the centuries.
This book allows us to take into consideration the intellectual and political projects, with their relative merits and defects, that are formed in civil societies when the awareness arises of having to progress towards better civil forms, if we consider production and energy efficiency, quality of life and a more shared social justice.
The philosophical and political material examined in this study, accompanied by historical information useful for understanding the issues explained, is very vast. Starting from the projects of progress formulated during the Enlightenment of the 18th century up to the political and social theories of the 20th century, the reader will understand what are the necessary complex social, intellectual and political forces that make any civilization function when it progresses towards civil forms superior.
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JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ
Globalization and its Discontents
(W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London - 2002)
[edizione italiana]
La globalizzazione e i suoi oppositori
(Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino - 2002)
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If we admit that the technological progress of a civilization occurred thanks to the push of the economic competition of the different subjects owning financial capital to invest in the production processes, then we must define the basic structure of this hypothetical civilization in the form of the three classes fundamental social:
a. Legislative class of government
b. Capitalist class
c. Class of workers
With such a model of civilization, adopted by the different peoples of a hypothetical planet, the question of economic globalization will, sooner or later, have to be addressed.
Reading this book provides the theoretical and practical tools that allow us to imagine a geographical and economic overview of a planet when it reaches the threshold of its political and economic globalization. In this geography the differences between people and people, between civilizations and civilizations cannot be missing, thus there are dominant civilizations with subordinate civilizations, strong and stable economies with fragile economies, rich societies with a long tradition in the arts and sciences alongside poor, who (by will or necessity) have made the culture of other dominant peoples their own.
The book explains well the reason for all these disparities that we find on a planet at the dawn of an era of globalization. The main reason is to be found in the competition between peoples.
In any civil history, on any inhabited planet, the forces of competition for mineral, agricultural and intellectual resources, for the exploitation of manpower, will always play a fundamental role in favoring this people to the detriment of that other and this will determine, in the course of of the centuries leading to the moment of the globalization project, the formation of strong and weak civilizations.
Being aware of this fact is important to imagine the political geography of both planet Earth in our hypothetical science fiction future, but above all of a hypothetical planet inhabited by an extraterrestrial civilization.
On this alien planet there can never be a single civilization, but there will always be different ones and with different qualities and characteristics.
And even if we want to pretend that the different civilizations of this alien planet will merge, in the subsequent age of globalization, into a single homogeneous civilization present on each of its continents, reading this book will highlight the fact that the process of globalization is not made to please everyone equally, but rather, it is a project that has the objective of extending the political, economic, financial and cultural power of a few rich and influential civilizations to the detriment of the other, poor and dependent ones.
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GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR
De Bello Gallico
written around 50 BC
(Published by numerous publishers. It is essential that it is an edition with two languages, the translation to be read and the Latin text on the opposite page)
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When describing an alien planet inhabited by an extraterrestrial civilization, if we want to do this using the principles of analysis relevant to historical sciences, it is appropriate to ask ourselves a question: how many different types of civilizations can there be, at the same time, on such a planet?
This book, written to document Caesar's military and diplomatic activities in Gaul, provides valid and valuable investigative material to have a geographical overview of the different Gallic tribes in Gaul in the 1st century BC.
It is the habit of science fiction writers to describe the properties of a civilization such as that of the metal industry with the same common characteristics, such as strong military pride, the feeling of honor, the severe respect for the social hierarchy based on strength and courage.
Giving the same cultural characteristics to certain peoples, just because they share the same type of technology, means considering them belonging to the same civilization, justified by the fact, moreover, that these peoples live in a restricted geographical area.
However, from reading Caesar's war chronicles, we learn that Gallic tribes of the same technological level had developed different forms of civilization.
There were the warlike tribes, there were the tribes dedicated to agriculture and the production of fermented cereals and there were the tribes who lived in fortified cities.
The intertribal relations between these different Gallic tribes were also of a very different types.
The warlike tribes demanded tribute from the peaceful and agricultural ones, while those who lived protected by fortresses managed to defend themselves from the hegemonic claims of exploitation of the more violent tribes.
From the military reports contained in this book, it is therefore possible to define a useful principle for historical sciences: civil differences between the peoples of a planet are not formed only when technological progress makes one people emerge among others. The civil differences that exist between peoples originate many centuries before the different technological progress created a cultural distance between them.
These cultural differences are formed for a set of different reasons even between peoples sharing the same technological level and, through different possible combinations, they are environmental, economic, cultural, social and ethnic reasons.
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ROLAND BARTHES
Mythologies
( First edition: Editions du Seuil, Paris - 1957
reprint by: Points - 2014)
[edizione italiana]
(Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino - 1974 e anni seguenti)
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There are some science fiction stories (novels or films) where the narrative logic follows typically mythological principles. So, in these stories, we see mythical objects, characters endowed with incredible powers who are entrusted with the task of solving problems, or places endowed with strong symbolic meanings.
To correctly analyze these stories, then, it is appropriate to use adequate investigative tools, which allow us to break down the symbols of these mythological narratives and therefore to highlight the system of cultural values that remains hidden within the story.
R. Barthes's book is suitable for this purpose, since it provides two types of working material.
In the first part of the book there is a list of myths of our modern culture, each of which is carefully analyzed, broken down and explained into its constituent meanings.
This part of the book is useful for learning how to analyze the structure of a myth and for recognizing how its strong elements act in culture.
In the second part of the book there is the theoretical part, where it is explained how a myth takes shape within a linguistic cultural system.
In this part the reader learns to use an important linguistic model previously proposed by the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. In his study of Semiology, De Saussure introduces the concept of Sign, which is the result of the attribution of a meaning to a phonetic form called Signifier.
Signifier, Meaning and Sign as a whole give rise to the linguistic system that is the basis of Semiology.
R. Barthes, in his work, uses De Saussure's linguistic model to similarly describe the mythical model.
The final meaning of this book is to demonstrate that every myth functions as a word in the social communication system of values.
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VLADIMIR JAKOVLEVICH PROPP
Морфология сказки
(First Edition: ACADEMIA Аенкнград - 1928)
[English Edition]
Morphology of the Folktale
(Published in many editions and also available online)
[Edizione Italiana]
Morfologia della Fiaba
(Giulio Einaudi editore s.è.a., Torino - 1966)
____________
There are science fiction stories that have the characteristics of fairy tales.
It is possible to recognize a fairy tale by very characteristic elements such as, for example, magical objects, naive but courageous protagonists, antagonists endowed with extraordinary powers, beautiful ladies of superior rank and therefore unattainable, etc.
Fairy tales are often the product of popular culture and therefore the fact of recognizing that a novel or a film is essentially a fairy tale allows it to be placed within a discourse of understanding the evolution of popular culture that goes from the oral tradition of eras ancient up to the mass media culture of our contemporary world.
The second usefulness of recognizing that a film or novel is essentially a fairy tale consists in the possibility of analyzing its narrative structure and discovering how much the percentage of its plot come frome the recurring themes and symbols from the tradition of fairy tales of times gone by.
This book, by explaining the working methodology suitable for analyzing a fairy tale, also provides useful investigative tools to those who want to recognize those narrative structures typical of fairy tales in a novel or a film.
Furthermore, having as its main objective that of defining the ways in which a story is told, it allows us to recognize its narrative architecture in order to identify its level of complexity as well as the percentage of originality in relation to the traditional narrative archetypes of ancient fairy tales.
Among the analysis tools provided by the book, there are:
1. A useful overview of the working method (also citing the works of Wundt, Volkov and Veselovskij).
2. The functions of the characters.
3. The recurring symbols of the fairy-tale tradition.
4.The typical roles of characters in a fairy tale.
5. The most characteristic attributions of the characters of a fairy tale, but also most linked to the culture in which each fairy tale originated.
6. Other useful analysis tools.
The last chapter explains how to recognize the elementary narrative units, described in the previous chapters, in even very complex fairy tales.
Note:
[In this bibliographical presentation we have used the word Fairy Tale because the book talks about stories of magic. Here the differences between Fairy Tale and Folk Tale:
Folk tales are passed down through oral tradition, whereas fairy tales are written works of fiction. Folk tales reflect real-world settings and events, whereas fairy tales feature magic and fantasy. Both folk tales and fairy tales aim to teach a lesson, but folk tales take a more realistic approach.]
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RENATO GIOVANNOLI
La scienza della fantascienza
(Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri, Bompiani, Sonzogno, Etas S.p.A
Collana Strumenti Bompiani - 1991)
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Science fiction narratives and discourses address numerous topics, even very different ones, which involve human culture in all its aspects.
If one wanted to group together the entire list of these topics with all the novels that have made them their science fiction basis, one would have to write an encyclopedia, consisting of numerous volumes.
However, sometimes, it is more useful to have a quick overview before your eyes that only allows you to recognize which science fiction topic the novel we are reading refers to.
This book, in just 353 pages, quickly analyzes the numerous different science fiction theories, citing the authors who proposed them and, sometimes, the physicists who served to ensure their scientific verisimilitude.
The book consists of nine broad categories of science fiction topics, each divided into a number of subcategories, some of which are further divided into analytical differentiations.
The usefulness we find in the analysis of each topic is given by the ability to describe the topic by explaining its importance for the kind of stories that use it as a scientific foundation. Furthermore, for each analysis, there is no shortage of critical considerations on the scientific reliability of these theories, considering how much they are just the result of imaginative reasoning or, instead, how much they are well conceived enough to be considered almost scientific.
So, among the topics analysed, there is no shortage of Asimov's robotics, William Tenn's seven sexual genders on the planet Venus, Ridley Scott's alien's biological cycle and also Jack Williamson's theory of hyperspace travel.
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ANTHONY S. MERCATANTE
The Facts on File Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend
(editor: Facts on File - 1988)
first edition - 832 pages
[edizione italiana]
Dizionario Universale dei Miti e delle Leggende
(Newton & Compton editori s.r.l. Roma - 2001)
edizione italiana - 780 pagine
___________
As has already been said in this blog, science fiction is a narrative that is obtained by combining two types of mental activity: fantastic reasoning with scientific reasoning.
Although scientific reasoning may seem well known to many of us, in fact TV and newspaper news constantly reminds us of the principles, theories, discoveries and human endeavors in scientific research activities around the world, the archetypes humans of fantastic reasoning are much more complex and difficult to identify.
Fantastic reasoning often uses the irrational mechanisms of emotions and in this case psychoanalysis has extensively studied the symbolic figures of the unconscious that influence fantastic reasoning.
However, fantastic reasoning also finds in the mythological cultural tradition a large quantity of symbolic figures ready to be used to express those specific meanings to which the conscience, in certain moments of life, feels it must give particular importance.
Furthermore, we must not forget that the symbols of mythological figures, although they show interesting similarities that unite different civilizations on Earth, are handed down in the history of different peoples with attributions of form and substance specific to each different culture.
This book is an encyclopedia, consisting of a single large volume of 780 pages (in the Italian edition) which aims to present the mythological figures of the different cultural traditions of our planet.
Furthermore, in the analysis of every myth and every cultural icon of this or that culture, there is always attention to identifying the ancestral and anthropological connections and similarities that allow us to understand the evolutionary history over the centuries, and sometimes over the millennia , through popular memory, geographical migrations and cultural exchanges, of these mythological figures, who all come from the same common matrix of intelligence, the human one.
The book, in addition to having an analytical index at the end, also has a cultural and ethnic index with entries relating to each civilization or people of the world.
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JACQUES YVES COUSTEAU - PHILIPPE COUSTEAU
The Shark: Splendid Savage of the Sea
(Doubleday & Company, New York - 1970)
[edizione italiana]
Lo squalo
(Longanesi & Company, Milano - 1970)
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The shark is a type of animal that is very distant, if we talk about evolution, from the human species.
It appeared in the seas of our planet one hundred and forty million years ago and has not undergone major evolutionary changes since then.
For this reason it is not wrong to consider it a living fossil.
In people's imagination it is the symbol of the bloodiest ferocity and Hollywood has contributed a lot to strengthening this myth.
Now, if we try to consider the myth of the shark as it appears in the popular imagination and, with a little imagination, we compare it to another popular science fiction-type myth, that of Alien, characterized by the same bloody ferocity, we can see that the two mythical figures have similarities.
The shark and Alien have animalistic attributions, both are extremely aggressive and both, towards us, are alien to us.
Now comes the question that makes this book important for a discussion of the verisimilitude of 'xenomorphic' characters in science fiction stories.
Ethologists have amply demonstrated that all animals live by implementing behavior that allows them to manage all the daily situations of their life: from learning, to recognizing food from danger, from searching for a mate to maintaining their territory of hunting, and so on.
It doesn't matter whether they are insects or our affectionate domestic companions, all animals have an intelligence suited to the lifestyle they have and, very importantly, wild life requires animals to be very intelligent because wild life is very difficult and very complex.
Then it would not be wrong to suppose that even the xenomorphic alien species of science fiction stories should correspond to the general ethological patterns of behavior that ethologists have derived from the study of dozens and dozens of animal species of all types.
This book allows us to go beyond the traditional myth of blind cruelty that has been attributed to the shark and to finally know it as it really is.
Before our eyes, the identity of a living being adapted to the difficult life of the open sea, but also of the reef, takes shape, where the struggle for survival involves both prey and predators.
In fact, to be able to overcome all the tests that the sea imposes on its creatures, it is necessary to have highly developed senses, excellent eyesight and a refined intelligence to distinguish dangers, prey and members of one's own species, towards which one must decide if using or competition behaviors or courtship rituals that serve the reproduction and propagation of the species.
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KONRAD LORENZ
Er redete mit dem Vieh den Vögeln und den Fischen
(Verlag Dr. G. Borotha - Schoeller - 1949)
[english edition]
King Solomon's Ring
(first english edition - 1952 and reprint till today)
[edizione italiana]
L'anello di Re Salomone
(Adelphi Edizioni s.p.a., Milano - 1967 e rispampato fino a oggi)
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The title of this book, in its original language edition, is very evocative:
"He spoke to the Cattle, the Birds and the Fish".
From reading the book it is clear that every topic described here makes sense if you connect it with the ability of social animals to communicate.
If you absolutely want to observe the true behavior of animals, it is necessary to let them live in complete freedom, so that they feel like protagonists of their own lives. This is another important meaning that emerges from reading the book.
When you manage to build a relationship with an animal, especially if it is a social animal, it emerges that it is led to attribute roles to the members of the group with which it lives.
Then, if the animal sits free enough and we are attentive enough, it happens that the animal gives us a role among those that its nature allows it to understand and, consistently with the role that it has given us, it behaves with us, communicating to us what he wants from us, what he wants to give to us, with that form of communication that its biological nature allowes him to have.
When the animal with which we live, if not the whole day, at least a good part of it, involves us in its daily routine, making us part of its group, or deciding to become part of our group, a social bond is formed inter-species.
Animals have no difficulty in establishing inter-species social bonds and, by virtue of these, they are able to communicate by learning the communication forms of other species, which are alien to them. Anyone who lives on a farm, where animals of different species live together, knows very well what I'm talking about.
So, what is the reality that this book puts before us?
And, above all, what usefulness does this book have for analyzing stories and discourses on science fiction themes?
Intelligent life forms, predisposed by nature to social life, when faced with an individual of another species or of another race, of their planet or of an alien planet, try to understand what the behavior is fairer to have and, if the alien is friendly, they try to understand if it has interesting resources that it is willing to share with others.
The animals we know could, therefore, be reinterpreted in a science fiction key and be defined, in a metaphorical sense, as the aliens of our planet.
But then, again by virtue of this metaphor, extraterrestrials should be considered as this book considers animal species, whose behavior responds to a complex system of ethological principles that have allowed social species to evolve until they become, in the case of extraterrestrials , an advanced civilization capable of traveling between the stars.
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CHARLES DARWIN
On the Origin of Species
(John Murray, London - 1859)
[edizione italiana]
L'origine delle specie
(Bollati Boringhieri, Torino - 2011 /12° edizione)
________________
If you want to have a clear and evident example of rational scientific thinking, you need to read the monumental work of Charles Darwin, in which he explains his work in formulating the theory on the origin of species.
The logical rules of inference are shown here repeatedly in hundreds of examples throughout the book's 500 pages.
As for inference, the rules of deduction of probable real cases, starting from general principles and rules, are also shown in numerous examples.
It is important, here, to underline the multiple importance of this book for modern world culture and, in this presentation, I will limit myself to indicating at least three of them.
This book is important for the biological sciences, to which it has given a working perspective, justified by exact reasoning, which then allowed important and valid results to be obtained in the understanding of all those biological, medical and cognitive phenomena of living forms.
This book is important for the epistemological sciences, which have the task of defining the methods of formulating theories, the methods of scientific investigation in the search for natural laws and in the activity of technological development for the purposes of civil progress.
Darwin's method of investigation and reasoning also uses comparison with the theories of scientists who before or at the same time as him studied evolutionary hypotheses and the possibility that every living species can evolve by acquiring new forms.
In his work of interpretation of evolutionary phenomena, he often cites the selection and hybridization techniques practiced by growers on botanical species and by breeders on domestic zoological species.
In this way of explaining the validity of his arguments through experimental evidence known to all, Darwin finds confirmation of his deductions, in which he hypothesizes that there are no species that are always the same over time, but that species are susceptible to minimal and constant changes over time. which, in the very long term, lead to differentiating one progeny from another.
To be able to illustrate this method of justification of his theory in an exhaustive and convincing way, he acquired knowledge of a vast quantity of plant and animal species and this, it must be said, is another fundamental scientific method of investigation: proving one's assertion based on the greatest possible amount of evidence.
The third importance of Darwin's book concerns the objectives of this blog.
Always remaining in the discussion of the right method of scientific investigation, which are the object of the epistemological sciences, reading this book allows you to acquire the right and necessary conscious responsibility when discussing the topics that constitute science fiction culture.
Not only when we find ourselves interpreting news of UFO sightings, or cases of abductions by extraterrestrials, but also when we venture into the interpretation of archaeological evidence that is still shrouded in mystery or which presents attributions that are easily interpretable with science fiction explanations.
In fact, a large half of the archaeological remains found around the world present some mystery about their origin.
Not to mention the similarities that are more or less evident in civilizations located in geographically distant places, sometimes separated by an entire ocean.
The science fiction hypotheses called to explain these apparently inexplicable facts are many and suggestive, but they are made by forgetting to use the scientific method correctly.
It is in this case that the epistemological sciences come in handy, helping to find the right way to follow when you have to choose between two extreme options:
or that of persisting in wanting to explain everything, even if this choice leads us to make hasty and generic conclusions.
or that of being content to explain only that clear evidence, leaving everything else in absolute mystery.
Perhaps the famous 'middle way' is to make a distinction between explanation of facts and research hypotheses.
The importance of research hypotheses should not be underestimated, since it is justified by reasoning of induction and deduction on certain albeit incomprehensible, partial or apparently contradictory data which, by virtue of their existence, are indications of a reality whose partial study still awaits to be completed.
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BRIAN R. GREENE
The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate theory
(W. W. Norton & Company, New York - 1999/ reprint till 2010)
[edizione italiana]
L'universo elegante: Superstringhe, Dimensioni nascoste e la ricerca della Teoria Ultima
(Giulio Einaudi editore, Torino - 2000 /ristampe fino al 2015)
____________________
A large part of science fiction topics have a space setting: UFOs, Extraterrestrials, Interplanetary Colonizations, Paleo-Astronauts initiators of human civilizations, and so on.
In all these topics, astrophysics is a discipline that cannot be ignored, indeed, not only must it be remembered when thinking about these things, but it is necessary to well understand the physical-mathematical principles and theories that regulate the quantities of speed, mass, gravity, space, time, energy, etc.
In fact, if the laws of physics are not respected in reasoning and stories set in space, what we say or tell would have no more importance than a magic fairy tale for children.
However, if science fiction stories are well known to a wide audience of all kinds, which includes the worker, the lawyer, the merchant, the doctor, the artist or the politician, the theories of astrophysics are not a matter of discussion popular to the extent that they are for 'experts' in this complex discipline.
This book has the merit of explaining with the language we use in everyday life topics that would require pages and pages of mathematical formulas to be discussed.
The merit of this book is that it manages to respect the formal precision of physics theories without making them banal or superficial, so that they are understood in the way a physicist is used to thinking about them.
For this reason, this book is important for anyone who has the desire to think seriously about all those science fiction topics that are inherent to planets, stars and outer space.
However, due to the complexity and strangeness of the phenomena explained, a first reading is not enough. In fact, many of these theories describe phenomena that are not perceptible to a citizen during his daily activities.
This happens when reading about the concept of quantized and non-continuous energy, or when addressing the concept of space deformation due to speed.
The book consists of two parts.
In the first part we find a long lesson on 20th century physics, from Planck's energy quanta to Hawking's black holes, without ever losing sight of Einstein's theories of relativity.
In the second part of the book the reader will be led by the hand through a hallucinating journey into the 11 dimensions of the Calabi-Yau String Theory, with which the harmony of the cosmos takes shape.
If Einstein's theories seemed hard to accept, string theory will seem like a psychedelic and absurd journey capable of making sense only thanks to mathematical reasoning, the only ones capable of guaranteeing logical acceptability in a multiplication of spatial dimensions that they curl up on themselves and then unravel, incessantly, since the universe existed.
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CHARLES BERLITZ
The mystery of Atlantis
(Grosset & Dunlap, Inc, New York - 1969)
[edizione italiana]
Il mistero dell'Atlantide
(Sperling & Kupfer Editori S.p.A., Milano - 1976)
________________
The lost civilization of Atlantis is one of the most discussed and fictionalized topics in the vast science fiction tradition of our times.
Academic archaeology, which works by setting up construction sites for the extraction of the remains of ancient civilizations from places scattered around the planet, has dealt with it and, having not found any island in the world just below sea level, cluttered with the ruins of magnificent palaces and artificial canals, as legend has it, rightly stated that Atlantis is only a utopian myth conceived to pass on a metaphor of symbols of civilization, technology and morality.
End of the story.
However, between the method of scientific research on an archaeological site and the complete disinterest in a historical document handed down to us by a important philosopher as Plato is, perhaps there may be some 'middle ways' that could shed light on some realities that still today they remain shrouded in the oblivion of time.
And so, as happens in cases like this where out of ten people who are satisfied with the evidence, there is always one who wants to investigate thoroughly and see, if he is lucky and attentive enough to the hidden details, to be able to find a explanation of why the myth of this great legendary civilization has spanned the centuries of human history, up to us.
Charles Berlitz's book is a search for evidence, clues, testimonies and also a collection of investigative attempts made over the 2,400 years that separate us from the day in which the name of that civilization was written in Plato's Timaeus and Critias.
But why does the myth of Atlantis fascinate the human imagination so much?
Atlantis has always been the utopian symbol of a perfect civilization, as vast as a continent and as powerful as the military superpowers of the world are today. Just like a 'Babel' of the seas, Atlantis experienced a golden age and then fell under the weight of its exaggerations, just as the legendary Babel did.
The purpose of this book, therefore, is not to reveal the mystery of Atlantis, nor to say whether or not this civilization is a legend but a historical reality, as it was for the legendary city of Troy, discovered by Heinrich Schliemann.
This book is a dossier, a collection where many small clues of a linguistic, pictorial, mythological, historical, geographical, geological, bathygraphic nature bring to the reader's attention a multitude of issues that little or nothing has been talked about. Like words with the same symbol and meaning in distant continents, depictions of elephants in Mexico, or the same unusual architectural solutions in Greece as in Mesoamerica.
Even the hypothesis on the possible location of the mythical 'lost continent' is carefully examined, bringing evidence in favor and also reasoning about how reliable this evidence may be.
What clearly emerges in this study is that when men travel by sea from one continent to another, words, names and entire portions of culture also travel with them.
This is the most interesting hypothesis that emerges from reading this book. It is therefore for this reason that today we find inexplicable linguistic, pictorial, cultural and architectural correspondences in places scattered around the world.
But, perhaps, official archeology is right when it says that Atlantis is just a myth.
But the myths always talk about something that is worth remembering, and that is about when on our planet there existed one or more commercially, culturally and politically developed civilizations on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea, capable of sailing men along ocean routes and to spread languages, traditions and knowledge.
Not at all. The result you get from reading this book is not the place to dig to find the treasure of Atlantis, it is much more.
It is a research hypothesis that encompasses the entire planet, where clues have emerged whose in-depth study could give humanity a forgotten chapter in its history.
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GRAHAM HANCOCK
Fingerprints of the Gods
(Crown Publishing Group, New York - 1995)
[edizione italiana]
Le impronte degli Dèi
(Casa Editrice Corbaccio s.r.l., Milano - 1996)
________________
Historical sciences, by interpreting archaeological evidence and written sources of the past, reconstruct the events of human history.
This is the scientific method.
However, it happens that there are scholars who sometimes disagree with the way official academic historiography has interpreted certain archaeological documents.
The proof of this inattention and imprecision in explaining past events lies in the fact that popular culture has given shape to the myth of 'paleoastronauts' (extraterrestrials, so to speak) to explain what academic archeology has either not explained well or has pretended not to see.
Thus, as is customary in investigative activities, it is by paying attention to the details that we come to understand the truth.
And this book is an inexhaustible mine of details that serve to shed light on a truth as unimaginable as it is lost in the history of humanity, but imprinted (for this reason the title of the book speaks of 'fingerprints') and handed down in many ways, in mythological legends, in archaeological artefacts and geological evidence scattered across our planet.
And so here is the historical truth that the book wants to demonstrate: that the history of human civilizations is much older than what academic historiography has told us.
An antiquity of at least 12,000 years ago, if not more.
There is no need to bring extraterrestrials into question, human history is the exclusive product of human intelligence.
The book, to prove its thesis, will guide the reader, on a long journey of 630 pages, through the most famous archaeological sites in the world to carry out a careful rereading of ancient artefacts, measurements, underestimated historical interpretations, legends and geological analyzes that will reemerge from the past a series of shocking events that involved our planet and, with it, the people who inhabited it.
Many wonder how a civilization could exist so highly developed as to perform wonders that are unthinkable today, such as moving monoliths and stones weighing many tens of tons with precision, or even carrying out geographical measurements with the precision acquired only in the 18th century.
Others wonder why we don't see evidence of the lost civilization of Atlantis, such as man-made palaces or canals or the remains of its ships.
And still others wonder what the mythical 'Lost Continent' described by Plato in Critias and Timaeus could be.
It is worth remembering what the Egyptian priest said to Solon on the matter: "On this Earth, many civilizations have followed one another, they have grown to levels of splendor and then collapsed, swallowed up in the oblivion of time, but you Greeks are a civilization too young to have any memory of all these things."
Therefore, there is no trace of extraterrestrials or paleoastronauts in the words of the Egyptian sage. All that can be glimpsed there is a profound awareness of the value of preserving ancient chronicles and a lot of trust in our human species.
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ROBERTO VOLTERRI
Archeologia dell'impossibile - Tecnologie degli Dèi
(HeraBooks S.r.l., Roma - 2005)
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We, people of the 21st century, have learned to consider ourselves as belonging to a technologically advanced civilization.
We use smartphones, we travel on trains, planes and our own vehicles, we live in homes equipped with every type of comfort system and we are aware that all these devices and machinery are the product of our intelligence.
We often consider these devices as symbols of our progress to distinguish ourselves from the inhabitants of the Earth many centuries ago, who lived in a more primitive way and without the technology of automation and electricity.
It is common in time travel stories to see people from the past be impressed and frightened by any electrical or electronic device that the time traveler shows them in action.
It is unclear why it is assumed that our ancestors from the past were incapable of understanding the technological nature of a smartphone or a flashlight.
In fact, are we really authorized to consider ourselves so much more technologically developed than our ancient ancestors or, instead, did they also have industrial tools and processes capable of arousing our amazement?
In short, human ingenuity is a quality that characterizes only the civilization that developed under the influence of the Enlightenment, or human history has always seen winters come into the world capable of giving a boost of technological development to their civilization to which they belong and allowing their fellow citizens and their descendants to live a life that takes advantage of developed technology?
But the real question is: what thoughts would a citizen of ancient republican Rome or Periclean Athens have with when seeing the functioning of a smartphone that takes a photo?
In films or novels, in such a situation, it is customary to show the man from the past who thinks he is witnessing a miracle of magic.
But perhaps, being a citizen accustomed to every type of commercial product of their time, the first thing he would think would be: "How many coins will he ask me to sell it to me?" Or he would say: "Show me how it works, I want to try it too!"
This is the mind of 'Homo Technologicus', which emerges from the pages of this book, written to investigate the discovery of strange devices from the past or to explain what type of technology was used in the industries of the past.
Since the dawn of time, humans have gradually invented tools and found ways to adapt natural phenomena and animals to their purposes, and this is how technology has developed. No matter whether they lived in houses lit by oil lamps or did not know how to produce a sheet of paper with cellulose, humans can recognize an industrially manufactured device even if they have never seen it, simply by seeing it used in the hands of another intelligent being, human or extraterrestrial.
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