"America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilisation" by Graham Hancock

Omnivorous reader that I am, after Carl Sagan I have switched to something else completely, namely my old favourite Graham Hancock whom I followed and recommended to everybody for many years now. Hancock is very enthusiastic researcher, mainly focused on ancient civilisations and so far his books were usually completely ignored by scientists but very popular with masses curious about another possibilities and theories - his best seller was "Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilisation " which I bought back in the 1990s and still love, however my favourite must be "Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind" for the sheer madness and scope of various ideas connected into one book. Hancock had a serious health scare recently so I'm glad that he has recovered and now there is a new book about possibility of ancient civilisations in Americas, long before Europeans ever knew about the place.

The premise is very interesting - contrary to formally accepted theory that Homo Sapiens roamed every continent but not Americas (where people came eventually via Bering strait while it was frozen) new archaeological evidence suggests that people indeed lived in a "New World" for thousands of years and traces of DNA & all sorts of interesting things point that perhaps there was a really ancient society there that has nothing to do with newcomers from the North. So far, so good - but than, to my biggest surprise Hancock really gets into all sorts of technical details and the book becomes so darn complicated and dry that I eventually found myself skipping the whole chapters. Instead following the narrative, page after page Hancock goes for calculations and measurements which for the first time struck me as unnecessary - instead of pointing an angry finger at academic society that shuns authors like himself, he could have simply focus on the story. Alas, seems like he has a very old grudge to bear and feel the need to prove he was right all along - now, to us, his readers, this is like preaching to the choir. We read him, because we love his ideas. But being angry at this or that scientist, page after page, chapter after chapter pointing how wrong and deluded they were, well its simply starts to become repetitive. So with deep regret, I am now (for the first time) reading Graham Hancock book simply because I want to finish what I started but not with excitement or pleasure, like before. I still love Hancock and I believe he is probably too emotional to distance himself from a objective, clear-eyed scientists who accept only proofs instead of theories - the world needs Don Quixotes like him. Strangely, I found this book my least favourite from all of his work, because of above mentioned.