Author: Christine Garwood
Publisher: Pan
Published in: 2008 (Paperback edition)
Pages: 436
If you're a sucker for weird ideas and strange people, this book is for you! As the title obviously points out, Garwood recounts the fascinating history behind the erroneous idea that the earth is flat. While reading this book, one can't stop making a parallel between fanatical "flat earthers" and the creationism crowd still fighting science in the classroom today. This should come to no surprise, since Garwood immediately links the two in her introduction. As you read on, she immediately dispels the myth that Christopher Columbus was the first man to prove the world was round (in fact, by the Renaissance, everyone - or at least, anyone who could read and write - knew our planet was a beach ball in space, rather than a free-floating Frisbee). Nope, notch one for the Greeks for first figuring out the circumference of the planet à la MacGyver, all without the fancy schmancy satellites of today. And yet, even with today's technology that has not only proven the Greeks right but also corrected their measurements to minute exactitude, there are still people fighting reality to this day... Never has the proverb "truth is stranger than fiction" rung more true than in this book. So find a nice flat spot to lay down, and enjoy a good read!
By the way, someone might want to buy this guy a copy...
By the way, someone might want to buy this guy a copy...
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