Ignatius Donnelly was a 19th century populist and freethinker whose books on Atlantis were groundbreakers--in fact the first serious look at the possibility of an antideluvian continent of high culture that existed in the mid-Atlantic.

Despite some flaws not fully proven Donnelly does manage to bring up a number of questions of the revisionist variety that later researchers have used in research in the ensuing 100 years.

Ragnarok also avoids a lot of the "channelling" and new age gobbledegook so familiar with fans of the genre. Highly recommended as an introduction.

In general this book is very interesting and informative, but it is a little hard to understand and is very confusing. I had to read pages over and over in order to understand them.

This is the book that started it all, written a century ago by a man as strange and dynamic as his story. Every fantastical image of a sunken paradise, or heated dispute about it's existence and location, all started with these pages.

The origin of all Atlantis-hype, this book similarly starts with the origin of the concept itself. Donnely includes a translation of Plato's story that all Atlantean research goes back too. This was the most interesting part of the book, just hearing the first account all discussion and contemplation aside. It is also the most integral part of the book, since out of it comes all of Donnely's extrapolation.

The basic point of the rest of the book is to try to show that 1) Atlantis could have existed and disappeared geologically ages ago, and then furthermore 2) to explain Atlantis's affect on the rest of human history. Here, his attempts are the most interesting, and, often, the most ridiculous. Generally speaking though, he does state his case scientifically, and in most cases, rather believably.

The only glaring faults are his mistranslation of the original Plato, placing Atlantis most likely in the wrong area, and how sometimes he takes some rather huge leaps to justify his points. But hey, he wrote it 100 years ago and still manages to produce an intriguing study into the Atlantean question, without the aids of more advanced technologies.

Either way, it's a very interesting book, and whether you believe in Atlantis or not, I'm sure it will give you a lot to think about, which was indeed Donnely's purpose in the first place. I recommend it to any inquisitive mind.

This is the ultimate book on Atlantis. Well written (though hard to understand at times due to the 19th century grammar), well researched, and very informative. Required reading for anyone interesting in Atlantis. ...

I really liked this book, because it was packed full of so much information. I used it for an English project on Shakspearen authorship and Francis Bacon played a huge role in Shakespeares life. I will refer this book to anyone.

This work is very good about Ignatius and the people in his world. Probably the most complete works on Donnelly to date.

The information about Governor Waite's Bloody Bridle Speech is distorted and incorrect. In fact this page # 323 isn't even footnoted in the Waite index. To get a correct copy of this speech, feel free to E-mail me. Frank S. Waite

The writings of Ignatious Donnelly (1831-1901) are still relevant and his thinking still original. Lawyer, congressman from Minnesota, entrepreneur, music and art lover - he may have been the only Congressman at the time to use all his spare hours in Washington to explore the Library of Congress. He was a prodigious, voracious and consummate scholar. As a writer, he became an instant success with *Atlantis: The Antediluvian World*. This book was not, despite its title, some pseudo mystical bit of fluff. He had discovered physical evidence for the existence of the Golden Age (plants we now call tropical flourished within the present Arctic Circle for instance) as well as physical evidence for prehistoric cataclysm. He theorized that the earth's great deposits of sand, gravel and clay were not the result of glacial movements but were produced by the debris of a comet passing close to or striking the earth. The Golden Age as well as the Great Cataclysm (known in Scandinavia as Ragnarok) was remembered in myth and legend all over the world.

Donnelly uncovered evidence that the drift was sudden, the poles were not as they are now ("some terrible shock displaced them") and heat meeting cold caused a thick world-wide cloud cover (which caused the subsequent ice age). Modern science corroborates this - the mammoths and all flora and fauna perished suddenly. The sea boiled in great fjords, rocks melted, and clay and gravel rained down from the sky. A recent PBS documentary claimed it was either due to a comet or a volcano.

Donnelly theorized that it was a comet. He devotes a whole chapter to comets and their nature, particularly the Biela comet as it related to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. At the same moment in three different states (Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois) it was recorded that peculiar and devastating fires broke out. Even though history books STILL stick like fly paper to the Mrs.-O'Leary's-cow-kicked-a-lantern-in-the-barn story, heat intense enough to melt tons of pig iron couldn't have been caused by a barn fire.

Among other interesting conjectures, Donnelly thought that the Americas were the true ancient world (which ties in nicely with recent anthropological findings in North America proving quite conclusively that paleoindians didn't all come over the Bering Strait from Mongolia and Asia). He dug up Indian legends about a great conflagration and there is a fascinating passage about the book of Job being a chronicle of the great catastrophe.

As Paul Allen says in his 1971 introduction to the book, "He took no 'leads' from other authors or authorities in his investigation of these themes; he was a pioneer in the fullest and best sense of the word." This book is out of print now, but I bought it from Amazon.com only three or four years ago. Originally published in 1883, it is still worth reading in the 21st Century. I vote for yet another reprint.

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