Zeitgeisters

Mark Booth

Writer

In 2007, a hitherto unknown author called Jonathan Black published a book that went on to become an international bestseller. It was called The Secret History of the World, and it wove together an intricate account of esoteric belief systems and secret societies from all over the world. It found so many new symmetries and hidden connections that it made the fiction of Dan Brown look dull and under-imagined.

‘Jonathan Black’ was revealed to be the successful publisher Mark Booth, and much was made of his insider’s knack for finding an intelligent and accessible way of presenting material of cosmic weirdness and obscurity.

In the end, The Secret History of the World didn’t quite live up to its billing as “a radical re-interpretation of human existence” because the eccentricity of its contents made it too easy for people to ignore or dismiss. As Hilary Mantel wrote in the Guardian, “if you go in for that sort of weaving, all you’ll achieve is to strangle critical thought in a noose of wishful thinking”. Although I admired the book, I tended to agree.

‘Human beings have a deep-rooted desire to find something worth believing in, something that transcends the everyday’

But now, two decades later, Booth is back with something much more to my taste. The Secret History of the Universe is a book which explores modern physics through its deep connections to mysticism and esoteric ancient wisdom.