Stonehenge dates its Bronze Age phase to 2000 B.C. (but with a history stretching back yet another thousand years to Neolithic times). It attracts more than a million tourists a year, but is more than an array of great standing stones. Stonehenge was indeed its own city, the metropolitan center of a powerful kingdom heretofore unsuspected. That city is reconstructed by the author from the archaeological evidence—royal palace, banquet hall and tomb, among other buildings. Here (apart from Homer) begins European literature, derived from oral traditions. The entire book is richly illustrated.

The late Leon Stover, professor emeritus at the Illinois Institute of Technology, was the first to bring science fiction to the college curriculum and was the author of numerous landmarks of intellectual history. He lived in Chicago.

Leon Stover

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 208
Bibliographic Info: 109 photos (17 in color), appendices, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2009 [2003]
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4512-7
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1134-1
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Figures      xi
Table of Plates      xvii
Preface      1

Introduction      3
1. The Polymathic Dr. Charleton      7
2. The Monument      21
3. The Builders      63
4. The Reconstruction      89
Epilogue: Looking Back from the Iron Age      117

Appendix 1: “To my Honour’d Friend, Dr. Charleton,” by John Dryden (1663)    121
Appendix 2: Excerpts from Stone-heng by Walter Charleton (1663)     125
Appendix 3: A Novelization of Charleton’s Theory, by Leon Stover      155
Appendix 4: Excerpt from Stonehenge by William Stukeley (1740)    163

Bibliography      173
Index      181

• “abundantly illustrated…interesting”—Alexiad
• “truly a superb and important book…really enjoyable read…important and fascinating”—Chocolate Box