I'm a sucker for books on 'alternative history' or in this case 'controversial history' as it was called. I enjoy reading the different beliefs that people hold, and honing my ability to detect hyperdiffusionism when it is being postulated in a... not so admirable fashion. I enjoy learning new mythologies, which these books tend to trod rather heavily on, and seeing the beautiful photographs of sites I, at times, have never even heard of before. Often times these books lead me to different cultures or different areas histories. Sometimes, they do none of these things, but they still prove wild reads. This book was not nearly as 'out there' as I expected it to be, but rather touted the Solutrean hypothesis and mixed in with it an ample amount of Hinduism and speculation. It was open about its diffusionist belief system, but rather believed in people arriving from Africa and South America at times than the more typical European diffusion.

The book was interesting, if a bit grasping in some of its ideas. I won't comment much on the beliefs in the second portion of the book and the development of a 'psychic tool-kit'. Such things are pretty much expected in books of this nature, and while any reader might be open-minded at times most authors reach a bit too far. No, the areas where the grasping were largest were primarily focused upon the development of various cultures, the Young Dryas Impact Event, and academia's unwillingness to acknowledge alternative explanations.

Academia is not nearly as close-minded as most authors make it out to be. In my experience, majoring in anthropology, most academics are happy to say they don't know something and to encourage further study. Most will willingly explore options they don't understand, and are open to trying. Yes, some are hard-wired to only believe the accepted facts, but that is true in any field.

This book was a bit too repetitive, and a bit too eager to denigrate 'traditionalists' a.k.a. any accomplished within the field. While the idea of lost cultures is an obvious one, and I am open to the idea of a certain degree of diffusionism and catastrophism, the tone of the book grated on me a bit. The book needed better editing, and could easily have been a more powerful reading experience with around 100 less pages. Oh well. I should have known what to expect with "The Conspiracy of Silence" being part of the title. ( )