Earth in Upheaval - Softcover

Immanuel Velikovsky

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671823396 ISBN 13: 9780671823399

Publisher: Pocket, 1978

Synopsis

Book by Immanuel velikovsky

About this title

From the Publisher:

When a book is republished after half a century at first you certainly think of antiquarian, maybe literary, or perhaps historical interest. With the books of Immanuel Velikovsky it is a different case. Their topicality and explosiveness has rather increased since their first publication - in disciplines diverse as geology, anthropology, archaeology, paleontology, astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, classical studies, Egyptology, theology, psychology and also in theory of science. Because in all these disciplines the first publication of his books provoked controversies unprecedented in the history of science since Galileo. At the same time recent findings mainly in earth and planetary sciences have confirmed his results and conclusions in a really impressive manner.

There are only a few books which - like the present one - preserve their topicality even after half a century without any changes in its text. We consider it all the more important to let the works of Immanuel Velikovsky speak for themselves and to republish them without any omissions or additions. In this way the original work with its revolutionizing contents and its unique style will be made available to the interested readers - scientists and laymen alike - and so hopefully the unbiased interdisciplinary scientific discussion about Velikovsky's theories will be supported after being long overdue.

Science should increase our knowledge. In the first place this includes the open and serious discussion of facts and theories, their study, research and - if necessary - the adjustment of the methods and paradigms to the facts, not vice versa. In this respect the study of Velikovsky's works, and above all the history of their acceptance in academic circles, can teach us a lot about our understanding of science and from a psychological point of view about our understanding of ourselves.

Summing up, we are convinced that the republication of the complete works of Immanuel Velikovsky can give fundamental impulses for numerous, very diverse fields of knowledge, for science in general as well as for the view of the world of our society - and at the same time lead to a proper appreciation of the life's work of a man who, searching for knowledge and enlightenment, was personally as well as professionally confronted with the most devastating reactions.

From the Author:

Earth in Upheaval is a book about the great tribulations to which the planet on which we travel was subjected in prehistorical and historical times. The pages of this book are transcripts of the testimony of mute witnesses, the rocks, in the court of celestial traffic. They testify by their own appearance and by the encased contents of dead bodies, fossilized skeletons. Myriads upon myriads of living creatures came to life on this ball of rock suspended in nothing and returned to dust. Many died a natural death, many were killed in wars between races and species, and many were entombed alive during great paroxysms of nature in which land and sea contested in destruction. Whole tribes of fish that had filled the oceans suddenly ceased to exist; of entire species and even genera of land animals not a single survivor was left.

The earth and the water without which we cannot exist suddenly turned into enemies and engulfed the animal kingdom, the human race included, and there was no shelter and no refuge. In such cataclysms the land and the sea repeatedly changed places, laying dry the kingdom of the ocean and submerging the kingdoms of the land.

In Worlds in Collision I presented the chronicles of two - the very last - series of such catastrophes, those that visited our earth in the second and first millennia before the present era. Since these upheavals occurred in historical times, when the art of writing had already been perfected in the centers of ancient civilization, I described them mainly from historical documents, relying on celestial charts, calendars, and sundials and water clocks discovered by archaeologists, and drawing also upon classical literature, the sacred literature of East and West, the epics of the northern races, and the oral traditions of primitive peoples from Lapland to the South Seas. Geological vestiges of the events narrated in documents and traditions were indicated only here and there, when I felt that the immediate testimony of the rocks must be presented along with the historical evidence. I closed that description of cataclysmic events with a promise to attempt, at a later date, the reconstruction of similar global catastrophes of earlier times, one of them being the Deluge.

I had intended, after piecing together the history of these earlier global upheavals, to present geological and paleontological material to support the testimony of man. But the reception of Worlds in Collision by certain scientific groups persuaded me, before reviving the pageant of earlier catastrophes, to present at least some of the evidence of the rocks, which is as insistent as that carried down to our times by written records and by word of mouth. This testimony is never given in metaphors; and as with the pages of the Old Testament or of the Iliad, nothing can be changed in it. Pebbles and rocks and mountains and the bottom of the sea will bear witness. Do they know of the days, recent and ancient, when the harmony of this world was interrupted by the forces of nature? Have they entombed innumerable creatures and encased them in rock? Have they seen the ocean moving on continents and continents sliding under water? Was this earth and the expanse of its seas showered with stones and covered by ashes? Were its forests, uprooted by hurricanes and set afire, covered by tides carrying sand and debris from the bottom of the oceans? It takes millions of years for a log to be turned into coal but only a single hour when burning. Here lies the core of the problem: Did the earth change in a slow process, a year added to a year and a million years to a million, the peaceful ground of nature being the broad arena of the contest of throngs, in which the fittest survived? Or did it happen, too, that the very arena itself, infuriated, rose against the contestants and made an end of their battles?

I present here some pages from the book of nature. I have excluded from them all references to ancient literature, traditions, and folklore; and this I have done with intent, so that careless critics cannot decry the entire work as "tales and legends." Stones and bones are the only witnesses. Mute as they are, they will testify clearly and unequivocally. Yet dull ears and dimmed eyes will deny this evidence, and the dimmer the vision, the louder and more insistent will be the voices of protestation. This book was not written for those who swear by the verba magistri - the holiness of their school wisdom; and they may debate it without reading it, as well.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket
• Publication date: 1978
• ISBN 10: 0671823396
• ISBN 13: 9780671823399
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 284