Sailing to Paradise: The Discovery of the Americas by 7000 B.C.

If you are interested in a collection of facts about world prehistory, combined with excellent theory and a bit of speculation, you'll love this book. While the book has been treated rather poorly by some academics, as the years go by, Jim Bailey is more and more vindicated. The book's illustrations, alone, are worth pondering. The chapter on ancient scripts points to new theories on the origin of writing and of the Phoenicians. The main thesis of the book is that there was world-wide trade in metals by as early as 7000BCE (at least), and that the Sea Peoples who conducted this trade linked the Old World and the New World together in countless ways. When the Bronze Age ended, the need for copper from the New World dropped off, and oontact between the two hemispheres became so sporadic that some Europeans completely forgot about the New World, except in legend. Bailey's tone is sometimes dry and humorous, and it wasn't until my second reading of the book that I saw the reason for some of the apparently extraneous details included in some paragraphs. It is a difficult subject to tackle and organize, especially since no scholarly work has been published on this thesis in recent times. Whether or not you end up agreeing with Bailey, you'll learn a great deal about ancient history and about the effect of the oceans on human activity. Having examined much of the same evidence myself and attempted to write on the subject, I appreciate the difficulty of the task. Bailey manages to stay fairly non-polemical, too, even though he knows his detractors won't. Some people have read this book as proof that "white men" are responsible for the early exploration of the globe, but if one reads at all carefully, it is readily apparent that Bailey is proposing something much more complex. People, if they lived near particular ocean currents, were bound to take their boats around the oceans. As these people devised ever more sophisticated methods of mapping and navigation, they ruled the seas and shaped land history more than has ever been realized. I believe Bailey's explanations of Carnac in Brittany and other megalithic sites within the Celtic region are very deserving of a close read. If the book seems a bit disorganized to some, it is because it's a big subject with a lot of facts. Bailey tries to include facts that counter his own proposals for the reader's consideration, as any intelligent and scrupulous author would do. I'd love to know more about who Bailey is and where he is now (email me: [email protected] if you read this, Jim!). We're rereading this book out loud at our house for a second time, and it's as much fun as the first time!

James Bailey please email me at [email protected] as soon as possible . I have some imfo that you must have and be part of. The Smoking gun? No Joke. Mike

It is a fact that North and South America are crawling with evidence that there were visitors from Europe and Asia centuries before Columbus. Skeletons, artifacts and inscriptions abound. Denied by mainstream archaeology, but refuted by analysis of DNA, bone structure and common sense. (See the April 26, 1999 issue of Newsweek -- it is the cover story.) If you like this book, you will like Gloria Farley's "In Plain Sight."

It surprises me that it is necessary to argue whether or not Columbus discovered the Americas. But whatever you call it, Columbus transformed the world by what he did. Even so, Sailing to Paradise presents a case for not even the odd visit before Columbus but of a substantial intercourse between the two hemispheres during the Bronze Age. Very much like Ignatius Donnelly's Atlantis for today (although one to be taken seriously), this book compiles all the evidence of pre-Columbian contact.The thesis is this: tin and copper, needed in to make bronze, only existed in sufficient quantities in America. (The source is otherwise a mystery.) Trade was carried out and the metals (and religions) transported to the Middle East by the sea people, Atlas people or Phoenicians, and distributed. (It gets very complex.) Even megalithic stones, like Stonehenge, were built for navigation to America. When iron surpassed bronze, trade ended and so did commerce, except in small numbers. It also presents evidence of significant interaction between America and India.Presents many solid foundations for the approach to understanding history, but although sometimes convincing in its arguments, it often inserts any scrap to prove a point, firm or flimsy, and often requires leaps of faith on short evidence. Interprets almost all stories (myths, Bibles, hearsay) as relating to his thesis. At one turn saying that one thing can be taken literally, but that another must be substantially re-interpreted in order to fit it well into the picture of the Bronze-Age world he describes. Yet the only real incredible thing to accept is that every mystery is explained by this one idea. Still it is thought-provoking and self critical enough to be taken for serious consideration. Most things before 500 years ago are sketchy and always open to some debate. The further in the past the more this is true. In this sense, we are blinded by a lack of written sources, yet his argument is that this book is only to establish a basis from which to focus archaeological study. Which is true since what is provided as evidence is still too circumstantial, even if I agree with much of what he says (even if not the broad thesis).As for how the book is put together, things are often referred to casually, such as places, expecting the reader, apparently academics, to follow his line. So this book may not be easily understood by a general reader, since he is clearly presenting this theory in the line of an academic argument. Of trivial note, although there are many illustrations, one irritation was that they don't follow the text. You have to continually hunt around for them. So read this book, if this sort of historical debate or theories about Atlantis (America?) are of interest to you.