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Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth's Surface Hardcover – July 10, 2006

by David Standish (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 96 ratings
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Beliefs in mysterious underworlds are as old as humanity. But the idea that the earth has a hollow interior was first proposed as a scientific theory in 1691 by Sir Edmond Halley (of comet fame), who also suggested that there might be life down there as well. Hollow Earth traces the many surprising, marvelous, and just plain weird permutations his ideas have taken over the centuries. Both Edgar Allan Poe and (more famously) Jules Verne picked up the torch in the nineteenth century, the latter with his science fiction epic A Journey to the Center of the Earth. The notion of a hollow earth even inspired a religion at the turn of the twentieth century-Koreshanity, which held not only that the earth was hollow, but also that we're all living on the inside. Utopian novels and adventures abounded at this same time, including L. Frank Baum's hollow earth addition to the Oz series and Edgar Rice Burroughs's Pellucidar books chronicling a stone-age hollow earth. In the 1940s an enterprising science-fiction magazine editor convinced people that the true origins of flying saucers lay within the hollow earth, relics of an advanced alien civilization. And there are still devout hollow earthers today, some of whom claim there is a New Age utopia lurking beneath the earth's surface, with at least one entrance near Mt. Shasta in California. Hollow Earth travels through centuries and cultures, exploring how each era's relationship to the idea of a hollow earth mirrored its hopes, fears, and values. Illustrated with everything from seventeenth-century maps to 1950s pulp art to movie posters and more, Hollow Earth is for anyone interested in the history of strange ideas that just won't go away.
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  1. Print length
    304 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Da Capo Press
  4. Publication date
    July 10, 2006
  5. Dimensions
    6.75 x 1 x 8.75 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0306813734
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0306813733
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The idea that another world exists below the surface of the Earth has captivated science fiction and fantasy writers since the days of Edgar Allan Poe's "Ms. Found in a Bottle" and Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. As Standish reveals, the theory has also been promoted by serious (if sometimes slightly off-kilter) scientists, beginning with the eminent Edmond Halley, who theorized that smaller concentric spheres were nested inside the Earth. Standish's approach relies heavily on plot summaries of novels by the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs, with frequent sarcastic interjections. "Stop him before he describes more!" he cries after one particularly lush passage. Scientists are dealt with in similarly detailed and skeptical fashion. Beneath all the wisecracks, however, Standish seems to have a genuine affection for his assorted crackpots and dreamers, and he provides an amusing tour of their various underground utopias. Unfortunately, the story fizzles at the end, failing to develop the all too sketchy hints that some people out there are still hollow-earth believers—but it's a fun romp while it lasts. 65 b&w illus. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

Tracing the modern history of the belief that other worlds might exist inside our own, Standish begins with the Enlightenment-era astronomer Edmond Halley—remembered widely for his eponymous comet but less so for his theory that geomagnetism can be accounted for by three concentric spheres that rotate inside the globe and sustain their own ecosystems. Halley's conception of the subterranean realm spawned a recurring theme in science fiction (Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and L. Frank Baum all set novels inside the earth), as well as a small but enduring strain of true believers. Standish, who calls the Hollow Earth theory an "idea that was wrong and changed nothing," laces his research with too much boisterous humor, but he has an engaging affection for his cast of fantasists and misguided visionaries.
Copyright © 2006 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorkeribe to The New Yorker

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Da Capo Press; First Edition (July 10, 2006)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0306813734
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0306813733
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.55 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.75 x 1 x 8.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 96 ratings

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David Standish

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
96 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

None Of Your Business
5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on an important topic
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2018
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Although the author must pretend that he does not believe that Hollow Earth exists, this is the best survey of the importance of the Holow Earth genre that I have found. Of course he can not himself admit that the Hollow Earth exists as our civilization is still not ready for the knowledge.
17 people found this helpful
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Tony Velasquez
4.0 out of 5 stars Literary criticism and flippancy
Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2022
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First off, this book isn't about the hollow earth theory. Its about people who believed it early on or wrote about it. Also, the book does not discuss the older religious ideas of the Buddists or Agartha or stuff like that in passing. The author begins with Haley's attempts to use the idea of a hollow earth to explain magnetic variation and goes from there. Symmes Hole is covered at length then moves on to a long presentation of the Hollow Earth in literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Shaver and the Deros make a brief appearance until discussion moves on to early B movies. The tone is tongue in cheek throughout ending in pure mocking flippancy at the end which makes the book a little less fun to read. The author is making fun of his own topic to such an extent by the end that it is over the top and unnecessary.
6 people found this helpful
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B. Roen
5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining!
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2011
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A fun and entertaining read. Standish adds wit and humor to the history of the crackpot theories of the "hollow earth" and the various screwballs that believed (and some that still do!) in civilizations living there. Includes chapters as well on hollow earth science fiction and an excellent bibliography of the genre. Highly recommended.
3 people found this helpful
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S. L. Pieper
5.0 out of 5 stars Hollow Earth
Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2013
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I am building a library for myself and am collecting books for the library that I will have some day. This is one such book. I haven’t read it yet but I think it will be fascinating and am looking forward to reading it.
One person found this helpful
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P. Marco
3.0 out of 5 stars Good picture and lay-out, poor idea behind the content
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2007
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I bought this book because I was attracted by the subject it is about. Unfortunately, once I got it and had the opportunity to read it, I realized that it was rather disappointing towards my expectancies. It's all about the official journalistic mantra of discrediting and crucifying everything with is not "scientifically supported"... Therefore, I pondered on how much paper and ink were consumed to produce this "Torquemada work" against the issue of the "Hollow Earth"... Nonetheless, the pictures and the lay-out of it (for eg., the quality of the paper used) are excellent! If it wasn't for these last details, I would have even rated itlower than 3 stars.
One person found this helpful
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Queen Bee
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2016
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This is an awesome book. Tons of information and a must have for the library
One person found this helpful
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Rory Coker
2.0 out of 5 stars A flop...
Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2012
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It might have sounded promising in the planning stages, but the final result is pretty much a flop. The idea would have been to trace the delusion of the hollowness of the earth through early science, 19th Century pseudoscience, and 19th and 20th Century literature and films. But this design leads to a book that is about half plot-summaries, written in a snarky and laboriously unfunny tone.

The author is to be commended for going back to original sources where possible, so that the lengthy accounts of the checkered careers of John Symmes and Cyrus Reed Teed given here are about as complete and accurate as you are likely to find. But Teed was no hollow-earth advocate, quite the contrary. His mad genius inverted the cosmos, so that the entire universe was within the earth, with nothing outside. As a result, it is Symmes, not Teed, who so greatly impacted literature and pseudoscience.

Most hollow earth writers, even including Newton collaborator Edmund Halley, seem sublimely ignorant of a fact Newton demonstrated in his work on gravity. Inside a uniform hollow shell, no net gravitational force exists on a test mass placed at any point. Any object inside a hollow planet of uniform thickness would drift at constant velocity until it ran into the shell. If the planet were of non-uniform thickness, the object would accelerate toward the thickest region. So much for suns and moons inside the hollow earth, or sets of concentric shells. Of course we know today from the propagation of compression waves through the earth, pretty much what its internal composition is. Even the huge networks of caves imagined by early writers like Kircher can't exist.

It appears to me that the majority of the hollow-earth enthusiasts around today are Mormons, or have a close Mormon connection. The author doesn't explore this link in any way.

Overall, I found the book disappointing, and fairly tedious in many places. Also, an author with an actual sense of humor could have found considerably more fun in the topic than is excavated here.
10 people found this helpful
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Alan Loewen
4.0 out of 5 stars Be Aware Of What Is Offered Here
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2013
If you are a true believer in the existence of a vast hollow interior of the planet on which we live, you will be very disappointed in this book. David Standish is not a believer and many times he breaks the fourth wall as an author to drive that point home.

However, if you are interested in how the theory of a hollow Earth came about and, most importantly, are interested in how that belief saw itself worked out in literature throughout the ages, then you will enjoy this book very much.

Highly opinionated, snarky, and many times quite amusing, Standish has done his homework (and the bibliography in the back of the book is nothing short of astounding) and he can speak with authority on the subject as he not only reviews the personalities and the history of true believers, but the works of those who chose the theme of the hollow Earth as the focus of their books, novels, films, and philosophies.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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jlhn
5.0 out of 5 stars great
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2021
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fast arriving .great read
One person found this helpful
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Mister Madel
5.0 out of 5 stars Hohlerde mit Witz und Grips.
Reviewed in Germany on March 31, 2017
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Ein sehr ausführliches Buch über die Geschichte der Hohlerde. Vom Mittelalter uber Jules Verne. Von Kontinentalplatten über J.R.R. Tolkien. Von Tarzan bis Okkult-Nazis. Sehr viele Hintergrund- Bilder. Hatte dieses Buch ohne Hintergedanken gekauft. 5 Wochen später sah ich Kong: Skull Island im Kino. Es gibt manchmal komische Zufälle. Einfach Klasse das Buch ..nur ernstnehmen bitte nicht!
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Francisco
4.0 out of 5 stars Is a good book for people who want to know at large the background theories/hypothesis bout hllow earths
Reviewed in Spain on May 21, 2016
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The books is in summary a good stuff, at least allows you to know the historical background in which the theories or believing about hollow earths develop in the past centuries. However, I think that the author does to much unnecessary extension which sometimes makes you becomes a little fatigued. But, in general, I recommend the book.
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Deaglan McAloran
5.0 out of 5 stars It's certainly an interesting book written well
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 8, 2019
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The product was exactly how the seller stated it would be and I bought for a spot of a leisurely reading
2 people found this helpful
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J. Sedgwick
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 15, 2014
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good book this lots of information and history of this strange subject.
2 people found this helpful
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