Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians

Dr Russell documents that almost every educated person in the Middle Ages, inside and outside the Church, believed that the earth is a globe. Centuries before Columbus, “the Venerable Bede” affirmed that the earth was round “like a ball” not a shield; and he is one of many. There were a few obscure flat-earthers like Lactantius and Cosmas Indicopleustes but they were largely ignored. Royalty held a golden sphere (‘orb’) with a cross (globus cruciger), where the sphere was clearly understood by the rulers and subjects to represent the earth.Furthermore, the medieval people even knew how big the globe was—Columbus got that wrong—and how small it was compared with the universe. And in the late Middle Ages, scientist/clergy Buridan and Oresme even toyed with ideas that the earth rotates.The idea that Columbus was the only round-earther against a multitude of flat-earthers is a lie fabricated by Washington Irving. Then 19th-century atheopathic propagandists like John Willam Draper and Andrew Dickson White spread this mendacity as part of their ‘conflict thesis’.It's notable that the famous Stephen Jay Gould had nothing but praise for this book. It is also good to read its footnotes because there is plenty of supporting information and quotation.

Russell, a widely-published historian of intellectual medieval thought, demonstrates that since classical antiquity (at least), there has never been a time when Western culture in general believed in a "flat earth", and that the common image of Columbus as a champion of scientific "truth" against the superstitions of the philosophers and theologians is false. The text consists of an extended essay in five parts: (1) The Well-Rounded Planet (more or less an introduction); (2) The Medieval Ball (showing the medieval belief in the Earth as a globe); (3) Flattening the Globe (the rise of the "flat earth" theory, especially in the nineteenth century); (4) The Wrong Way Round (focussed on Washington Irving's "history" of Columbus and its influence); and (5) Around the Corner (a chronological survey of views of the Earth, beginning with the classical Greeks, followed by a discussion of the persistence of the flat earth view, even after it is proven false). This is followed by twenty-four pages of footnotes (many of which are discursive, not merely referential), an extensive bibliography of works both ancient and modern, and a helpful index.Russell includes evidence both for and against his case, and raises crucial questions about the nature of the progress of knowledge and the interpretation of data. Well-written, easily read in an evening, and compelling. Highly recommended.

Christopher Columbus was a radical who thought that the earth was round while everyone around him believed the earth was flat. That's the history that most of us are taught, but it's wrong. The fallacy of this view and the intellectual fraud that perpetrated it are explained in Jeffrey Burton Russell's short book.There were a few medieval "flat earthers," to be sure. Russell explains, though, that no one of any stature was influenced whatsoever by them, and especially not by Cosmas Indicopleustes, who has been given undue attention by writers eager to hold him up as typical of the period.The ancient Greeks believed that the earth was a globe. Modern historians invented, and in some cases continue to teach, that this knowledge was suppressed by the Catholic church in the middle ages. According to Russell, the church did not stand athwart history yelling "Stop!" Augustine, Origen, and Bede, as well as other Christian intellectuals, acknowledged the sphericity of the earth.People living in the middle ages, if they thought about such matters at all, could see that the earth was likely a sphere. After all, the hull of a ship disappeared over the horizon before the mast did. The stars also provided evidence that the world was not flat. Russell convincingly shows that the concept of a "dark age," during which the ancient Greek and Roman knowledge was lost, is pure fantasy and was promulgated by modern historians in part to make their own work at "reinterpreting" the classics seem more profound. The "Flat Error," as Russell calls it, was amplified over time as some intellectuals repeated the claim of earlier secondary sources without checking the primary sources for the evidence.

This book should be made into a documentary. It blows away a lot of the none sense taught in the public square. People should be required to read it.

This is an amazing book, it describes in detail how early American historians created the myth of Columbus and the flat earth to discredit religious education. How they did it, how easily the lie took hold and how pervasive it is today. Most people today learned that Columbus had a hard time convincing the kind and queen of Spain to let him sail west to the Indies because the religious advisers to the throne claimed the world was flat and the ships would fall off the edge of the earth. This is a total fabrication that became 'common knowledge'. Read the book and beaware that the same things, just different lies, are being built into the education of Americans today.

Ein Muss für jeden, der wissen will, wie eine rationale Gesellschaft sich selber betrügt.

I could hardly do better than to quote from the foreword:`At the beginning of his book he quotes from current text-books used in American grade schools, high schools and colleges which insist that there was a consensus among medieval scholars from A.D. 300 to 1492 that the earth was flat. This also was the thesis of the influential historian Daniel Boorstin writing for a popular audience in his book, The Discoverers, published in 1983. Russell then uses his deep knowledge of medieval intellectual history to demonstrate that the opposite was true. It was conventional wisdom among both early-and late-medieval thinkers that the world was round'Russel subjects the misconception and prejudice to the clear light of fact.Firstly, he demonstrates that the academic (and religious) direction was always that the earth is a globe. There were a couple of flat-earthers and a few supporters on the way but a) they were ignored/ condemned as heretics at the time and b) guilibility was not invented in the 20th/21st century.Then he explains how the misconception came to be - the main thrust being in the industrialised 19th century. Being an American author, most references are to other Americans.Further - he offers suggestions as to why the Flat Error persists, despite more than adequate factual evidence to the contrary.It's all contained in 77 pages - about the quantity that an interested non-specialist can cope with. The binding of the digital reprint technology edition, though, is awful - the pages fall out as soon as you bend the spine.For further facts about medieval science try `God's philosophers - how the medieval world laid the foundations of modern schience' by James Hannam.

Deeply academic, yet very readable book. Even the foreword starts right with the notion, that there are still some people, who believe to myth about the flat Earth. I was also thinking, that in the medieval era people thought it. Yet, Mr. Russell walks the reader page by page out of this false idea. I really recommend this book to all authors of school textbooks.