Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness, and an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World

Acknowledgments

IT IS A great pleasure to thank everyone who has contributed so much to this book. First I would like to thank Suzanne Gluck at the William Morris Agency for all her brilliant and enthusiastic support. She is absolutely amazing—the very best agent anyone could hope to have, and I know how fortunate I am to be able to work with her. My deepest gratitude also goes to my editor, Kim Kanner Meisner. She read the manuscript with passion and insight, and her comments were phenomenal. Thank you again for all your help, which has wonderfully improved the book.

I would also like to thank Jake Morrissey, Teryn Johnson, and Shaye Areheart for their support of this project, and Diane White for reading the manuscript with great encouragement. Thank you, Raymond Betts and David Olster, for showing just how exciting history really can be, and John Greenway for first introducing me to Olof Rudbeck. Thanks, too, to Gunnar Broberg, Gustav Holmberg, Ulla Järlfors, and Jane Vance. Russell Hargreaves kindly looked over my Latin translations, Birgit Zetinigg my German, Richard Turner my French, and my wife, Sara, my Swedish. Even if all the translations did not in the end appear, they certainly helped inform the narrative. All errors in the translations, as well as in the story itself, are mine alone.

Special thanks to the many people who helped make my stays in Sweden so memorable. Ingvor Gerner showed again and again that Swedish hospitality truly reaches Rudbeckian proportions. She went out of her way to make sure I had a great time in Stockholm, and I certainly did. Thank you, Annika, Pär, and Jacob Levander for my home on the west coast. At Lund, I enjoyed the stimulating intellectual and cultural climate at the Department of History of Ideas and Science. Jan, Gunnel, Rakel, Lisa, and Tove Fagius made me feel just as welcome in Uppsala. Gunnar Eriksson gave timely support, including a copy of his Atlantic Vision, when I was just starting my fascination with Rudbeck. Years later, on another trip to Uppsala, Karin Johannisson presented me with copies of Rudbeck’s second, third, and fourth volumes, another kind, thoughtful gesture that greatly helped my work. All researchers should feel such a warm welcome.

In his delightful book Banvard’s Folly, Paul Collins called libraries “the most heroic of human creations,” and I am inclined to agree. I would like to thank the librarians and archivists at a number of institutions: the National Library in Stockholm, Riksarkivet in Stockholm, Uppsala University, Lund University, Uppsala landsarkiv, Anglia University, Cambridge University, and the Royal Society in London. My thanks, too, to the interlibrary loan team at the Young Library at the University of Kentucky, who always responded graciously to my urgent 3:30 a.m. e-mail pleas for yet more obscure treatises from the nineteenth century and available only in Swedish. Remarkably, they managed to track down almost every single one.

I would very much like to thank the J. William Fulbright Commission in Washington and Stockholm for an unforgettable year and a half in Sweden—it was enough to turn me into a raging Swedophile. The American Scandinavian Foundation Fellowship was of tremendous help, deepening my obsession with all things Swedish, while also allowing me to spend more time in the archives reading the rest of Rudbeck’s letters and notes. I would also like to thank the Cambridge Overseas Trust, London’s Overseas Research Award Scheme, and the Emmanuel Research Award for their support, years ago, of my interests in European history. Thanks to everyone who helped make my stay in England so enjoyable, including the entire Cambridge University Baseball Team. At my age and ability, I had come to think my days of playing first base were long over. And even if they probably should have been, it sure was a blast.

As always, my parents, Van and Cheryl King, have offered valuable advice, support, and encouragement at just the right time, all of which helped me stay focused and on the right track. You are a source of unbelievable love and inspiration—thanks! Thanks, too, to my grandmother, Ella King; my brother, Brent; and his wife, Lindsay.

Following Rudbeck in his quest for Atlantis has certainly led to some surprises. Best of all, my passion for this search led to finding the love of my life, a wonderful Swedish girl named Sara, and today we are married. As far as this story was concerned, you were its first critic, reading every page a frightening number of times and making so many fantastic suggestions. I always looked forward to our book nights, which were fun and at the same time outrageously helpful. Thank you for sharing the story with me! I am so happy for everything you do in my life, and I am overwhelmed with joy as I look at the very special addition to our family, our beautiful three-week-old daughter, Julia. Sara, I am so glad to dedicate this book to you with all my love.