Standish, David

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Standish, David

PERSONAL:

Education: Miami University, B.A., M.A.; graduate work at Indiana University.

ADDRESSES:

Office— Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, 1845 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL 60208-2101. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER:

Journalist, writer, and educator. Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, faculty member; has been the editorial adviser for twelve Magazine Publishing Project prototypes. Previously editor at Playboy magazine for ten years.

AWARDS, HONORS:

The Art of Money: The History and Design of Paper Currency from around the World was named one of the ten notable art books of the year by the New York Times.

WRITINGS:

The Art of Money: The History and Design of Paper Currency from around the World, photographs by Tony Armour and Joshua Dunn, Chronicle Books (San Francisco, CA), 2000.

Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines below the Earth's Surface, Da Capo Books (Cambridge, MA), 2006.

Also coscreenwriter for film Club Paradise. Contributor to periodicals, including Esquire, Travel & Leisure, Outside, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Audubon, GEO, Landscape Architecture, House Beautiful, Reader's Digest, Diversion, Chicago, and Satisfaction. Writes occasional nationally syndicated travel articles for Universal Press Syndicate.

SIDELIGHTS:

Freelance writer and editor David Standish's first book,The Art of Money: The History and Design of Paper Currency from around the World, was named one of the ten notable art books of the year by the New York Times. Called "entertaining and so informative," by Booklist contributor Mike Tribby, the book focuses on the artistic qualities of currencies around the world. In the process, Standish recounts the history of various countries' currency, including the evolution from coins to paper money. In contrast, the author also writes of U.S. currency and compares its rather bland look with the more artful and colorful U.S. currency of the past, which included images of Pocahontas, Ben Franklin flying a kite, and the famous crossing of the Delaware by George Washington during a harsh winter in the Revolutionary War.

In The Art of Money, Standish begins with the Netherland's 50-guilden note, which is decorated with Sunflowers, and goes on to write about currency in South America, Great Britain, and elsewhere. In addition to discussing the intricacy of various designs for currencies, the author expounds on how these currencies represent the various countries' images. For example, he notes such currency designs as Singapore's engraved airplanes, which publicize the country's national airport, and the rebels and mythical gods who are featured on currency in South America. Numerous photographs of currencies are included. "Not only is this book smart, funny, accessible and wonderful to look at, but its subject matter is universal," wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor.

Standish's next book,Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines below the Earth's Surface, was called "one part scientific history, one part science fiction history, and one part sheer love of the whole hollow earth theory" by a contributor to the BookHound Web site. The reviewer went on to write: "Standish does an admirable job of keeping all these elements balanced."

In Hollow Earth, Standish's examination includes the "hollow earth" craze in nineteenth-century America, tracing Americans' fanatical belief that the earth was hollow to an 1818 self-published pamphlet written by John Cleves Symmes, a St. Louis trader. "The kookiest thing about Symmes's theory is how believable many found it," noted Joshua Glenn, writing in the New York Times. "Not that it was without a semi-respectable scientific pedigree." In fact, the hollow earth theory had been expounded before Symmes, most notably by Sir Edmond Halley, an English astronomer famous for his calculation of the orbit of the comet now known as Halley's Comet. Halley postualized that the earth was hollow, which accounted for the magnetic pole flux. The belief was also held by numerous religious figures, including German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, who was noted for his writings in medicine, geology, and oriental studies, and Cotton Mather, a noted Boston cleric known today for his connection to the Salem witch trials. Another "hollow earther" that the author profiles is Cyrus Teed, a nineteenth-century physician who espoused the theory and even founded the Koreshan religious movement based on this belief.

Nevertheless, Symmes stoked the fires of belief in America by following up his pamphlet with a nationwide speaking tour and an effort to raise money for an expedition to the North Pole to find a hole that would go into the Earth's core. Symmes, in turn, influenced writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, whose own fictional accounts of a hollow earth influenced Jules Verne to write the classic Journey to the Center of the Earth. In addition to the works of Poe and Verne, Standish discusses a host of other fictional writings, from the writings of Jacques Casanova in 1788 to Edgar Rice Burroughs novels, in which he features Tarzan descending into the earth riding a zeppelin.

Despite the advances in science that presented evidence that the theory was wrong, the idea continued on into the twentieth century. For example, Standish profiles Richard S. Shaver, who combined the hollow earth theory with the new craze about UFOs (unidentified flying objects) and made a fortune expounding his belief that UFOs were not from outer space but rather were stored in the Earth by telepathic aliens. Even Adolf Hitler seemed to believe that it was possible and thought that he might be able to develop a hideout there. "That such notions have proved so enduring should not surprise us," commented Jon Barnes in a review of Hollow Earth on the London Times Online. "Their appeal is the same as it has always been, the dream of a world which is richer and stranger than our own, the hope that we are only ever a few metres away from the fantastic, the belief that there are secrets kept from us which, if uncovered, would make sense of life."

Reviewers generally praised Hollow Earth as both a fun and interesting read. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that the author "seems to have a genuine affection for his assorted crackpots and dreamers." P.D. Smith, writing in the London Guardian, referred to the book as "a splendid cornucopia of crackpot theories."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 2001, Mike Tribby, review of The Art of Money: The History and Design of Paper Currency from around the World, p. 899.

California Bookwatch, October, 2006, review of Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines below the Earth's Surface.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, February, 2007, H. Benoist, review of Hollow Earth, p. 981.

Financial Times, August 12, 2006, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, review of Hollow Earth, p. 33; August 11, 2007, Carl Wilkinson, review of Hollow Earth, p. 41.

Guardian(London, England), September 1, 2007, P.D. Smith, "Hole World," review of Hollow Earth.

London Times, December 13, 2006 Jon Barnes, "A Cultural History of Delusion," review of Hollow Earth.

New York Times, January 28, 2007, Joshua Glenn, "Journeys to the Center," review of Hollow Earth.

Print, March, 2001, Pamela A. Ivinski, "Drawing Funds," p. 14.

Publishers Weekly, October 23, 2000, review of The Art of Money, p. 68; May 15, 2006, review of Hollow Earth, p. 61.

Science News, August 12, 2006, review of Hollow Earth, p. 111.

Times Literary Supplement, December 15, 2006, Jon Barnes, "To the Core," review of Hollow Earth, p. 36.

Tribune Books(Chicago, IL), October 29, 2006, Peter Lewis, "Book Shows Hollow Earth No Empty Notion," p. 4.