History Books > Graham Hancock History Books

Advantages: a wealth of information, a real eye-opener
Disadvantages: a long read and a lot of information.

Graham Hancocks work has always been bordering on the controversial, as far as the main stream academic world is concerned, but that has always been the price paid for pushing the boundaries. Academic frontiers tend to travel at the same rate as the worlds techtonic plates and any idea that tries to travel faster than the speed of academia are fair game from powers that be. Where as in some of Hancocks books such as Underworld or Sign and the Seal, ...
...leap of faith to follow, with this book there is a lot of grand new ideas to try to take on board. That said at over 600 pages there is a lot of room to throughly explore these ideas, and as such the book moves at a pace that most readers will be able to cope with. As with a lot of his more recent work the general theme of the book is an exploration of the roots of civilization. Within the accepted understanding of the rise of culture, technology ... Read review

Advantages: groundbreaking theories
Disadvantages: lots of reading

Graham Hancock is becoming the leading light of popular alternative archaeology. I use the term alternative archaeology as he works in an area that tends to upset the mainstream academics, its a subject that is not very open to small changes let alone the radical re-thinks that would be needed to take Hancocks work on board. The books was written along side the TV series Lost Kingdoms of the Ice Age , and anyone who saw that must be prepared to cover ...
...The basic premise of the book is this. 1. The sea levels have been gradually rising since the end of the last Ice Age. 2. Early civilivations tend to first establish themselves on coastal, estuary and river locations. 3.Much of the old coastlines are now under water due to the sea level rise. 4. The oldest remains of settlement in the world are now to be found underwater Quite straight forward when you think about it. Once you get that in your ... Read review

Advantages: accessible and user friendly
Disadvantages: -

...knowledge of the particular subject. Heavens Mirror then is the answer to this, an easy to access book on alternative archaeology, with an easy to follow text and sumptuous photographs. The book was designed to go hand in hand with the Channel Four series and as such is presented in a way designed to appeal to the non-academic, a breath of fresh air. Those familiar with Hancock's previous work will already have an understanding of the nature of ...
...fundamental ideas of mans past. His general theory, which provides a sort of overview of his work, is that the growth of man from nomadic hunter-gatherer took rather longer than the accepted history books suggest. It is quite a thing to believe that man rocketed from unsophisticated subsistence level tribal groups to the race he is today in no more than 5000 years. Graham Hancock doesn't believe this and here offers ideas to explain a longer time ... Read review

Advantages: Captivating, informative, heart-renching
Disadvantages: Alot of information to take in.

War Junkie By Jon Steele ISBN- 0552149845 Price- £6.99 Published- Orginally published in Great Britain by Bantam Press a division of Transworld publishers in 2002. Later Corgi edition published in 2003. Found at- www.booksattransworld.co.uk War novels has always intrested me but War Junkie particularly caught my eye as it is very different from normal war stories. As i did not have alot of prior knowledge of modern war times this book was very ...
...make it enjoyable. War Junkie is written as a biography through the eyes of a camera man rather than an actual soldier. I found this intriguing having the story told by a cameraman gave the advantage of having all angles of the distrubances covered. It also tells you how cameramen and journalists also risk their lifes at the stake of capturing the horror and tell their story to the world. Jon Steele became a ITN cameraman in 1982 and has established ... Read review

Advantages: A gripping and extraordinary episode in history
Disadvantages: You need a good interest in WW2

...combatants and civillians. Stalingrad was perhaps the most important turning point of the second World War. Hitler's mad obsession with capturing the city named after his Soviet rival eventually cost the Germans the 250,000 men of the Sixth Army. Their remaining forces never recovered their balance and were soon in a rapid retreat all along the Eastern front. The first section of 'Stalingrad' deals with launch of the invasion of the Soviet Union. ...
...knew the Soviet counter-attack at Stalingrad destroyed the Roumanian 'satellite' armies fighting with the Germans in Russia I'd never really read much about it. Beevor takes time to dwell on the Roumanians and how they felt about the Germans and the war. So I felt I learnt new things from 'Stalingrad' throughout. The accounts of life in Stalingrad during the campaign are vivid and haunting. Red Army troops are boated in over the Volga river. This ... Read review