Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries Paperback – January 15, 2007

Brian Haughton has made an excellent work of compiling the basic facts around the ancient mysteries and secret knowledge topics. Because of the vast number of topics that he has covered in the book, I can imagine that a compromise had to be found in terms of length and depth. A pity that he didn't include more pictures and illustrations on the subjects, though.All in all, a very good starting point for anyone wanting to research further on any of the presented topics.

I really enjoyed this book, and think that the author did a good job of briefly describing dozens of fascinating historical phenomena and mysteries. As other reviewers have pointed out, the author does not give much credit to aliens, ancient advanced civilizations, etc., but generally gives a very good summary of the the history of the specific phenomenon, the various theories about it, and the current state of knowledge.Other reviewers point out that you could find everything in this book on the internet, etc.; while this is true to a certain extent, I give this book credit for two things:1) the author seems quite objective and thorough, while on the web you need to waste your time looking at a bunch of biased and/or nutty sites before finding something good (if ever);2) I'd actually never heard of many of the phenomena described in this book, so would not have even known to look them up; in any event, it is nice to have everything in one volume.While I enjoyed the book, it is not perfect; it is fairly dated at this point and so might not reflect the latest info, and the author's choice of included topics is also a bit quirky, although it looks like he covers more topics in a second book (History's Mysteries).

I looked at this one and will give it to one of my teenage grandchildren who is interested in ancient history. I bought it because it came up when I searched Gobekli Tepe, but I could not find even a mention of that site.Samuel J. Serata

A good extra source of history for students.

A good book for those with a beginning interest in hidden or alternative history.If you are already a fan of alternative or hidden history books, this will probably be review.

If you're looking for those nuggets of history that conspiratorial political, social, and religious forces have attempted to bury or whitewash, don't look here. There really isn't much in this book that you wouldn't find in an encyclopedia entry. Although the author purports to be objective, it's pretty clear he's a skeptic. Not my idea of "hidden" history. If you want basic summaries of some controversial or historically intriguing topics, maybe this is your book. If you want substance I'd look somewhere else.

Hidden History explores 49 historical mysteries. Most of these are well-known and well-misunderstood. It also thumnails, typically with a single paragraph, 40 more historical mysteries.Because this book doesn't go too deeply into any one subject, Hidden History fills a niche. Most people hold strong opinions on things political, religious, or ancient. But ask them to explain and you rarely get a factual basis for that opinion (not that it's wrong, mind you--it's just baseless). They read something somewhere or heard some scuttlebutt sometime, so now they "know" a story but can't explain why from a basis in fact. Often, that "knowledge" is actually wrong.The "obvious" solution is for the opinion holder to do some serious research. But that doesn't happen, because people lack the time and the inclination to wade through dense academic texts. It's just easier to go with what you already think you know. That's where this book comes in. The author constrains the scope of the writing on each mystery to what a typical reader is likely to absorb (or care about). People who write technical or scientific articles are well aware of the challenges involved in deciding what to leave out, so that the kernel is communicated to the reader.The result of Mr. Haughton's effort is a highly readable and informative work that addresses the major mysteries of history. You can read on a given topic and "get it" within a few minutes. No need to spend two hours trying to absorb minutiae. Nor do you need to read three dozen volumes to cover these topics.We live in a society in which something like only 40% of people read two or more books a year. Followers of my reviews know I personally read more than a dozen times that many each year; they may not know that I also "read" about 120 audio books a year. Anyhow, the demographics on reading instruct us as to what mix of depth and breadth is appropriate for a general audience.An author can choose to go into great detail on one topic and leave the other forty or so unaddressed, or the author can produce a book like this one. I think Mr. Haughton made the correct choice. And because of that choice, people other than academics will have some basic knowledge of history's greatest mysteries.Most people don't particularly care to be experts on bog bodies or Egyptian pyramids. Or, for that matter, any historical topic. But you have a winner when you put a collection together, make it easy to read, and stick to the highlights. Which is what Mr. Haughton has done in this case.The work appears accurate, to me. Mr. Haughton doesn't provide his sources, though. No footnotes, endnotes, or bibliography. He does provide a 10-page listing of sources under the heading "Further Information" and these are organized into groupings directly related to the book's chapters (and in that order). Presumably, the author looked at or read these sources, so perhaps they were the ones he used for the book.The tone in which Mr. Haughton writes is that of a tertiary source (primary being an original researcher, secondary being one whose sources are primary). So, no pretense and a good, almost conversational style. It's easy to read. The text does contain more editorial/copy errors than I would like, but those don't impede the reading very much.This book consists of four Parts spread across 256 pages (several of which are blank pages between parts or chapter ends, and the actual text starts on page 15):*Part I: Mysterious Places*Part II: Unexplained Artifacts*Part III: Enigmatic People*Part IV: Some Further Mysteries to PonderIt also has a Foreword, Introduction, index, Further Information (sources to read), and About the Author.I think this book makes a good addition to anyone's personal library. It's also a good read for kids in middle school or higher. I wouldn't use it as a bibliographical reference for a research paper, but if writing such a paper I would use it to get my mind wrapped around the topic and to get a list of sources to start with.

I was impressed at the intelligent approach of this author's writing. The areas covered are very diverse, fact-based, fascinating accounts of mysterious places, curious and unexplainable artifacts and other strange and unusual historical events and people across the world. There is no question that this author put considerable time and research into each topic covered. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

An easy read with lots of short features and chapters om various lost and unexplained cities and ancient technologies and mysterious people.The readers of Fortean Times will like it, but may wish for more substance and depth.Very enjoyable dip into ancient mysteries and lost civilisations.

good book little snippets of information to get you interested very light plenty of topics good if your not wanting to read a whole book on a specific subject