Invented Knowledge. False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-religions

Invented Knowledge is an exploration of the murky world of fake science and pseudo-history: fields that generally rely on lost continents, ancient super-civilizations, conspiratorial cover-ups, preternaturally daring and undocumented explorations or discoveries, and even vast Satan-inspired plots to offer an alternative version of the past. At once lively and authoritative, Ronald H. Fritze illuminates the phenomenon of false history by telling the story of a select group of pseudo-historical ideas. Drawing on the best scholarship available, he explores legends such as the lost continent of Atlantis, and the original settlement of the Americas by a lost European people, who established a glorious civilization only to be supplanted by the invading 'Red Indian', and whose only remains are the many mounds scattered across the eastern United States.Fritze shows that in spite of, or indeed perhaps because of, the strongest rejections of mainstream historians, and the lack of scientific evidence, some of these ideas have proved very durable, and gained widespread acceptance in the public mind. Such ideas can also be deadly - the Nazis, for example, believed in a false version of European history in which the German people were a superior race destined to conquer the world. Containing many diverting examples of spurious narrative, artificial chronology, and ersatz theory, this book will appeal to readers interested in the history of fringe ideas, and all those who perhaps want to believe, but are too sceptical to do so.