The documented history of human civilization is supposed to reach several millennia back into the past.For excerpt, TOC, 'Search Inside' and The documented history of human civilization is supposed to reach several millennia back into the past.For excerpt, TOC, 'Search Inside' and reviews click on http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/2913621058/tag=theringofthen-20 And yet if we consider the rate at which civilization is supposed to have progressed, we encounter periods of obscurity and informational vacuum following the alleged decline of every ancient empire, and then everything starts anew. Inventions are presumed lost for centuries, then re-invented by people whose names bear suspicious semblance to those of the ancient inventors. Just how true all of this is? Could history as we know it really be a collation of several chronicles relating to one and the same period of time? Apparently, this is what the Russian mathematician Anatoly Fomenko claims. He is the author of the first volume in a series of seven that came out in English recently, and generated incredible controversy amongst professional historians worldwide. Many are trying to put the author into one league with numerous paranoid conspiracy theorists and mad inventors - however, all of his work conforms to the highest academic standards and is backed by solid scientific facts; furthermore, some of the most lucid minds of our time support many of the theories put forward by the authors. Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, says the following in his preface to volume 1: "Let us consider the factor of a mass character that I shall be referring to as psychophysical. Documented history tells us of the insatiable need of human beings to make discoveries. The vector of technological progress is a strictly vertical one. Every ten years something happens: discoveries, sea voyages, explosions… Everything keeps on changing, we see constant evolution - from Columbus to the landing on the Moon, from crossbows to nuclear bombs. Forwards and upwards. However, the traditional ancient history tells us of periods when humanity apparently remained dormant for centuries - "ancient" Egypt, the mediaeval "Dark Ages" - whole epochs of utter stasis in human thinking. It appears that the inhabitants of ancient Egypt and Rome had a different genetic code, and couldn't be bothered about anything at all, so they froze in their development, the result being a total lack of innovative activity. more >> <<less