Reviewed by Andrew McMichael, Department of History, Western Kentucky University

At first blush, a history of late-17th century Sweden might not seem like the first thing you would pick off the shelf of Barnes & Noble, or order from Amazon.com. After all, many Americans probably could not place Sweden on a map, and in their mind might confuse it with Switzerland. The history of that far northern country has often been obscured by the events and glory of nearby countries such as France and England.

Yet historic Sweden is not entirely unknown in the States. A popular video game entitled &#8220Europa Universalis: Crown of the North” is set in Renaissance-era Sweden and Norway and requires the players to navigate and prosecute the Great Northern War. Teenagers gobbled up this game, meaning that many of them knew more about Swedish history than their history professors.

It was during that period Swedish nationalist and professor at Uppsala University, Olof Rudbeck, lived with what was at once an understandable and, at the same time, very strange obsession. Like many before and since, Rudbeck set out to locate Atlantis, first described by Plato in his dialogues &#8220Timaeus” and &#8220Critias.” Rudbeck, however, was convinced it was in Sweden, and more peculiarly, that the town of Uppsala was the capital of the mythical city. Reaching deeper into a methodological fantasy world constructed out of wishful research, Rudbeck began to see Sweden as the cradle of Western and Mediterranean culture – the place to which the Argonauts fled after capturing the Golden Fleece, the land of the Titans and proto-Olympians, and the forebear of Greek and Roman civilization. Rudbeck also came to believe the Greek alphabet had its roots in the Swedish runes. He finally published his findings in a multi-volume work entitled &#8220Atlantica.”

&#8220Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness, and an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World” is David King’s highly enjoyable account of this search. This is a book with multiple layers, some of which are plumbed to great effect, some of which will leave the reader wanting. Primarily, King narrates Rudbeck’s life and career, and especially the hunt for evidence that would confirm Rudbeck’s belief in Sweden as the home of Atlantis. Here King is effective. He paints Olof Rudbeck as a classic &#8220Renaissance Man,” intellectually involved in medicine, herbology, science and antiquities. He also follows and recounts Rudbeck’s search for Atlantis with a kind of ruthless efficiency Rudbeck himself would admire.

This is also, on another level, an examination of Renaissance-era university life. Rudbeck’s professorship brings him into contact and conflict with the system of patronage that helped academics conducting research. Modern academics will immediately recognize the petty battles between Rudbeck and his colleagues over arcane points of university governance and professional jealousy, as well as his conflicts with university administration. Yet this is a portion of the book that would have profited from a more full exploration. The Renaissance was a period when universities developed much of their modern structure, and a closer examination of the European context in which Rudbeck’s Uppsala University developed would have added greater depth to the story of Rudbeck’s life and to the milieu in which he matured intellectually.

On yet a different level, this is a history of Renaissance Sweden and the conflicts among Norway, Denmark, Russia and the Netherlands. International politics deeply influenced every facet of elite society, and universities were no exception. For Rudbeck, however unconsciously, this meant a nationalistic placing of Atlantis in Sweden. By the end of his research Rudbeck saw Swedish influence in virtually every aspect of Greek civilization. For example, instead of Phoenician roots for the Greek alphabet as contemporaries and modern scholars understood it, Rudbeck saw a descendant of Swedish runes. This is not to argue that Rudbeck was dishonest, simply that the world that influenced him in the late 17th century was one in which Sweden was at the pinnacle of power. Such status could not help but influence the ways in which scholars perceived their country’s history.

Like many biographers, King is clearly enamored of his subject. King depicts an Olof Rudbeck who innocently tries to complete his scholarly studies while his colleagues take potshots at him, the world conspires against him, and various obstacles block his path. One can’t help but wonder about the man that King admits is &#8220almost completely unknown today.” In the way that &#8220Star Trek’s” Lt. Pavel Chekhov caricatured Russians, King’s Rudbeck seems responsible for virtually every significant development in the field of humanities. He sees history as a struggle, anticipating Hegel and Marx (p.71). He discovers the lymphatic system (p. 11) in 1650, although Thomas Bartholin published his own results first and Jean Pecquet had already noted the existence of the lymphatic system in animals. Rudbeck anticipates the development of social work in the 19th century through his charitable works, he is touted as one of the first modern collectors of folk customs (p. 82), predating the brothers Grimm, develops techniques for using soil and rock layers to date historical events, predating stratiography (p. 57), and develops the first commercial transport system by sea in Sweden (p.94). He invents the field of experimental archaeology, predating Thor Heyerdahl, and apparently does it better (p. 96); a curio cabinet of knives, ax heads, and other artifacts becomes &#8220a 17h-century predecessor to the private museum” (p.126); and he deduced the central importance of rivers in the rise of civilization before Newton (p. 252). He also decries taxation without representation, and many other modern philosophical arguments.

Still, these are not flaws in the book, merely peculiarities. Rudbeck is a character the reader will cheer for and sympathize with by the end of the book. Despite his fanciful theories and petty disputes – or perhaps because of them – Rudbeck comes across as a kind of everyman to whom people can relate. How many people labor at their jobs, working on something important, only to have co-workers take jealous potshots at their work?

Moreover, this work is fun and engaging. It’s not a book simply for academics. The writing is accessible and flows well, with the main exception being that the sense of chronology is confusing – people who seem to have died early in the book reappear, the printer Henrick Curio being one. This isn’t a critical flaw. I went into this book expecting a dry work appealing only to academics. What I found was an entertaining piece that historians and non-historians alike will find engrossing and consistently enlightening.