There can be no greater genre of books for those who love learning and mystery than those that deal with the possibility of lost civilizations. This is not a collection of works that explores the uncontacted tribes of the Amazon but rather deals with the central idea that there have been great civilizations of learning and science that existed more than 12,000 years ago.

Writers such as Graham Hancock and Rand Flem-Ath have brought this subject out of the fringes and almost into the mainstream. Far from tossing out baseless pseudo-science, these researchers have taken the time to investigate history, geology, plate tectonics, and early literature to piece together the clues in what may turn out to be the most worthwhile mystery of human development.

That there was a Great Flood at some point in the ancient past is now commonly accepted, although its cause remains the source of much...