I read this book years ago (I borrowed it from my college roommate) and even giving Chariots of the Gods one star, is basically (in my opinion) one star too many. Aside from the fact that the information presented is at best wildly speculative and weirdly imaginative, Chariots of the Gods also has a to me profoundly anti-humanistic (and even borderline racist) feel to it. To me, it has always seemed as though Erich von Däniken simply cannot accept the fact that the great civilisations of the past were or could have been created by humans (that humans, but perhaps specifically the great non Caucasian civilisations of the past, like the Maya or the Aztecs could simply not have been intelligent and/or advanced enough to create monuments, art, music, whatever), that therefore, the great civilisations of the past must have been the product of alien invasions, alien contact (and that religion itself must therefore also be a product of the latter, that deities, angels, mythological beings were originally aliens, the aliens who supposedly taught humanity, because humanity itself was somehow not intelligent and capable enough to create civilisation, structure, buildings). I realise that there are some people who actually believe in von Däniken's theories, and I also know that there are others who find his theories interesting and imaginative (albeit unbelievable). But his speculations, his assertions have always left a rather bitter taste in my mouth, a feeling that von Däniken despises humanity, and that he especially despises and cannot accept the fact that individuals like the Mayans, the Egyptians, the Aztects and so on were able to create, to think with cleverness and intelligence (and their own cleverness and intelligence).
A great deal has been said about this book in the 84 years of its publishing history. Time has undone the author and the claims he made in this book which once set the cash registers ringing in bookshops across the World. An amalgamation of lies, half truths and hearsay all stuck together with the glue of one man's passion. A passion that sees the hand of extra terrestrial intellect behind everything on our planet is pretty much how I would sum up the entire book.One thing must be said of von Däniken that he exhorts his readers to believe in what he tells them. The zeal of a lone crusader in a planet full of evil, lethargic scientists was he ! If you tend to see Science as a lower form of life, then he will win you over in no time and have you nodding your head to most of his ideas. Ideas that are baseless and downright ridiculous for which you really do not have to be a scientifically oriented person to understand them. His opinions have emotions that range from mild scorn to incredibly racial and blatantly vitriolic. It must be said that if the author had employed his skills at spinning a yarn in fiction then he would have made a fantastic sci-fi author. The finest review I could think of for this book was by a man whose intellect I immensely admire. It goes like this:That writing as careless as von Däniken's, whose principal thesis is that our ancestors were dummies, should be so popular is a sober commentary on the credulousness and despair of our times.I also hope for the continuing popularity of books like Chariots of the Gods? in high school and college logic courses, as object lessons in sloppy thinking. I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of von Däniken. ~ Carl Sagan
What do You think about Chariots Of The Gods (1999)?
I'm a fan of the first season of Ancient Aliens and I wanted to read this book because it seems to be the one that started it all.Perhaps when it first came out, it was ground-breaking and intriguing, so people ignored how poorly it was written.But now that the ancient alien theory has been explored more fully - and made into an entire television series - this book falls flat.I found the writing difficult to read. Not because of large words or the difficulty of the issues. Rather, the prose is so stilted, the editing so horrible, the sentences so run-on, it was hard to plod through.Putting aside the shortcomings of the prose, the book also did not fulfill its promise of showing evidence for aliens having visited Earth in the ancient past. The author would present intriguing mysteries from the historic record and archeological sites, then lead the reader to question it (often making extreme assumptions), then drop a bunch of questions. It's more of a pamphlet that raises questions. The author raises some important and intriguing questions, but I can't recommend that readers pay for a book of questions.If you're interested in this topic, you can skip this book and read up on it in more recent books and by viewing the Ancient Aliens series on the H2 and/or Netflix.
—Natalie Wright
The author wrote this book to try to prove that pre-historical Earth received visitors from out of space who helped with the civilizational process. The thesis itself is very interesting and he shows amazing data to support his theory, but my feeling is that he attributes too much to ETs, as if our human kind could not have come to some conclusions and discoveries by itself. In the end, all boils down to one thing. In all, it's an interesting book, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it has convinced me.
—Shamsh
I have to clarify my rating here: One star for "scholarship" and five stars for entertainment value. Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods is, of course, one of, if not the, classic works of pseudoarchaeology and UFOlogy. Von Daniken blithely ignores close to a century of archaeological and anthropological theory so that he can tilt at the windmills of some imagined scientific "establishment." Most of his "arguments" consist of something along the lines of "We're not really sure how pre-historic people built this, so aliens did it. QED." As with all of the other works in this genre, there is a strong undercurrent of ethnocentrism and racism implicit in these arguments. Surely such "primitive" people could never construct such great monuments! (Yes, he does even use the term "savages" in a few places.) Nearly every sentence in the book contains some error, misrepresentation, or downright howler. To document all of them would take an entire book and, what do you know, someone bothered to do it. Go check out Ronald Story's The Space-Gods Revealed: A Close Look at the Theories of Erich von Däniken. But if you want to read pure, concentrated bullshit, pick up Chariots of the Gods.
—Nebuchadnezzar
