Swedish scholar of late 17th-century fascinates


David King, Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness, and an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World, New York: Harmony Books 2005, 320 pages.

Reviewed by Andrew McMichael, Department of History, Western Kentucky University

At first blush, a history of late-17th century Sweden might not seem like the first thing you would pick off the shelf of Barnes & Noble, or order from Amazon.com. After all, many Americans probably could not place Sweden on a map, and in their mind might confuse it with Switzerland. The history of that far northern country has often been obscured by the events and glory of nearby countries such as France and England.

Yet historic Sweden is not entirely unknown in the States. A popular video game entitled “Europa Universalis: Crown of the North” is set in Renaissance-era Sweden and Norway and requires the players to navigate and prosecute the Great Northern War. Teenagers gobbled up this game, meaning that many of them knew more about Swedish history than their history professors.

It was during that period Swedish nationalist and professor at Uppsala University, Olof Rudbeck, lived with what was at once an understandable and, at the same time, very strange obsession. Like many before and since, Rudbeck set out to locate Atlantis, first described by Plato in his dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias.” Rudbeck, however, was convinced it was in Sweden, and more peculiarly, that the town of Uppsala was the capital of the mythical city. Reaching deeper into a methodological fantasy world constructed out of wishful research, Rudbeck began to see Sweden as the cradle of Western and Mediterranean culture - the place to which the Argonauts fled after capturing the Golden Fleece, the land of the Titans and proto-Olympians, and the forebear of Greek and Roman civilization. Rudbeck also came to believe the Greek alphabet had its roots in the Swedish runes. He finally published his findings in a multi-volume work entitled “Atlantica.”

Full review at bgdailynews.com >>>

Posted: Mon - August 21, 2006 at 09:41 AM          

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