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For thousands of years before the beginning of recorded history -- the legends tell us -- a powerful civilization flourished in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This breathtakingly advanced island continent boasted splendid cities, golden temples, crowded seaports from which the far-reaching influence of Atlantis spread to the rest of the world, until its destruction in an overwhelming cataclysm. Now, based on careful study of scientific undersea research, Charles Berlitz proves that Atlantis is not legend but fact -- and unravels a mystery even more startling than the Bermuda Triangle! What message lies buried with the mighty stone structures deep beneath the Atlantic? What profound revelations about Atlantis have come to us from beyond the Earth? Was Atlantis destroyed in an ancient nuclear war? What great centers of Atlantean culture yet await discovery?… (more)
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Bringing forth ruins and cultural evidence from both sides of the Atlantic, Berlitz began his argument by attempting to show a shared connection between numerous cultures across the world that seemed to be influenced by the same source. Then he became chronicling the scientific discoveries of unwater ruins, dismissed by scientists as natural phenomena, that prove ruins of an ancient civilization having existed in the mid-Atlantic. While a surface reading of this material is thought-provoking, Berlitz’s misunderstanding of geology undermined the book back in the mid-80s. The science of plate tectonics is the biggest problem with Berlitz’s book and the fact that his understanding is so wrong would make you shake your head.
While there are a lot Berlitz’s theories that just don’t stack up, he did expression layman ideas that surprisingly have begun to be debated within the scientific community though for reasons close to Atlantis. The first is that cataclysms can and do occur within the geological record, but his thoughts and evidence are nothing compared to Dr. Robert M. Schoch’s. The second was suggesting that an impact event occurred at the end of the last Ice Age that caused a sudden melting of ice, while scientists are beginning to believe an impact did occur it actually resulted in sudden cooling instead of heating. Yet these two ideas do not make up for all the incorrect assumptions Berlitz’s writes.
Atlantis: The Eighth Continent is packed full of cultural information from around the world that is its major appeal along with two ideas by the author that are now being debated by scientists but not to prove Atlantis. Frankly the evidence doesn’t prove Atlantis in the mid-Atlantic, but it’s a curious read nonetheless.