2/27/14

The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America: A book review


Reviewed by Mark Turner
2/27/2014
Emmy Award-winning writer, Richard J. Dewhurst, who has worked for the History Channel, PBS, and A&E, just to name a few, has turned his journalistic eye to a subject that many might find too far out to be believed; The Idea that ancient giants once towered over the North American continent and that any evidence was quickly hidden away by the Smithsonian is indeed a tall order, but the evidence presented is overwhelming. After reading some 50 pages, I could not dismiss the facts, no matter how bizarre they might seem even to me. I have posted on this blog the stories of giants and Indian mounds and I have visited the Newark Earthworks, but I had no idea that the evidence for such stories was greater than I could have imagined. 

In the first chapter, we are given a vast wealth of clippings from newspapers and periodicals from all around the United States dating from the 1700’s up into the 1950’s, when homes, farms and roads were being constructed and the mounds that were encountered were dug-up. What was found were skeletons of enormous sizes that are consistently between 7 to 9 feet tall. In nearly all of these stories, the Smithsonian is called in, the bones are taken by the museum . . . never to be seen again.

The idea that pre-historic America was populated by a civilization or invading civilizations has been around for some time, but for most of us, this is an idea that is brand new. Luckily, Dewhurst gives an overwhelming case of a land long known to the ancients of the old world, but forgotten and all too often ignored by academia. His skills as a journalist are much welcomed in a field of research that is usually filled with substandard investigation. Ancient Giants is confirmation that the American past is a far different place than anyone could have imagined. The burials of many of the giants were found with shields, armor, helmets, precious stones that all point, not only to their origins from distant Europe and the Middle East, but to the importance they held to their respective communities. These giants were kings and queens, the rulers of those that stood as high as you and me. The Native America’s themselves speak of the giants and the wars that were fought with them.

Giants are not the only inconvenient artifacts presented. Horned skulls, elongated skulls, the evidence of contact with ancient Rome, the vast amount of metals that were mined from the great lakes, ancient pictographic writing . . . no the Americas were not the home of ‘simple savages’ as history books would have us believe, nor is it a place where humans have only lived for a few thousand years, this was a melting pot long before the ‘discovery’ and modernization of the New World and this book is a testament to that fact.

Dewhurst found it hard to believe, as I did, much of the information that he uncovered while researching his book, but the proof was right before his eyes. It’s proof that cannot be denied. I’m still sort of in a state-of-shock having just read it. Small parts of the story I have known about and entertained over the years, but when presented with the evidence in one solid volume, it shatters those preconceived ideas of the distant past.  This land was a far more fascinating place than we have been led to believe.

There is much more in this thrilling book, like photographs and illustrations and a whopper of a story at every page. Ancient Giants is a must-have and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America by Richard J. Dewhurst
Bear & Company Books
368 pages
In Store: $20 
Online: $13.34
Kindle: $9.99
Nook: $11.99

Related stories: 

Our Forgotten Indian Mound and the Bones of Giants