A popular book about various more-or-less eccentric types who have tried to pinpoint the physical location of the Garden of Eden. Earlier ideas are dealt with briefly, but the bulk of the book is about late nineteenth and twentieth century ones.

Genesis provides only one clue to where Eden is supposed to be, namely that there arises a river which divides into four, namely the Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. Nobody knows which the first two might be, but the latter pair is famous enough, so identifying the spot should be easy enough - except than the Tigris and the Euphrates arise quite separately in the Armenian highlands rather that splitting off from a common source.

The more prosaic of the various scholars, visionaries, and amateurs Wilensky-Lanford covers have, in effect, assumed that the author really meant where the rivers converge, not diverge, and so placed Eden in southern Iraq, where the two rivers join to form the Shatt al-Arab. The Pishon and Gihon are assumed to be lesser rivers, canals, or wadis in the area. This naturally fits well with the nineteenth century discovery that much of Genesis has older parallels in Mesopotamian literature. The wilder thinkers among them have found Eden in all sorts of places, including the North Pole, Ohio, and the Tarim basin. The modern Tigris and Euphrates in Turkey and Iraq are, obviously, not the same as the antediluvian ones that flowed out of Paradise. A couple accept that the rivers are the same and that it's their origin that is meant, and happily ignoring the common origin part, put the Garden in the Armenian highlands.

I noted some errors and apparent confusions on Wilensky-Lanford's part, but nothing that really affects any point she's making. It's a pleasant read featuring a number interesting and mostly little-known characters.

This book had the potential to be a great story. Unfortunately the author seemed to be confused as to whether academics or laypeople are her target audience. I am not an academic so the constant and overwhelming use of quotation marks was a distraction that even the best story line could not overcome (and frankly, the story line wasn't that great either). I tried my best to give the author a fair shot but gave up after 4 chapters. Very disappointing. ( )