Books published by William Meacham Hong Kong

ONLY A DOG

One of America's best known anthropologists contemplates his beloved wolfhound

This book was written by the late renowned anthropologist Grover S. Krantz (1931-2002). It is a narrative and contemplation on his beloved wolfhound Clyde -- a superb example of pet nonfiction through the eyes of an expert in human and animal behavior.

The back cover gives information about Krantz and a synopsis of the book. The Preface and Epilogue by Krantz's colleagues at the Smithsonian give a brief overview of Krantz's life and how he came to his final resting place at the Smithsonian, appropriately, with his best friend! The "Publisher's Note" describes how and why I brought this book to print. This article plus the Foreword and Table of Contents can be read online by clicking on the title opposite the cover below, then clicking "Preview this book". The webpage also has a lengthy review published in a magazine devoted to the Irish wolfhounds.

As Dave Hunt of the Smithsonian writes in the Epilogue, Grover's final wish was that his bones and those of Clyde would one day be mounted for display in one of his favorite poses, as pictured on the cover of the book. That was not possible at the time, so Grover's bones along with those of Clyde and two other of his dogs were deposited in the Smithsonian's Dept of Anthropology. Recently (February 2009), Grover got his final wish when their skeletons were displayed as part of a special exhibit "Written in Bone" at the National Museum (see the photo at left) .

ISBN 978-988-17324-1-5

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THE RAPE OF THE TURIN SHROUD

Was the Turin Shroud wrongly condemned? ... And Violated??

The story of the C-14 dating fiasco, and disastrous "restoration" that the relic was subjected to.

This book describes the "desecration" of the Shroud of Turin due to serious errors in its study and conservation. It is the story of how this relic, once the subject of worldwide curiosity and awe, with its haunting and still unexplained image of Christ, came to be wrongly dismissed as a medieval fake by the general public. And how it recently suffered major damage in an ill-advised and secretly executed "restoration" conducted for cosmetic purposes.

The book begins with the Shroud at the pinnacle of its prestige in the early 1980s, when millions of people, including a respectable number of academics and scientists, considered it quite possibly the actual burial cloth of Christ with a mysterious imprint of His body. This perception changed almost overnight with the announcement in 1988 that Carbon-14 dating had produced an age of around 1260-1390 A.D. for the cloth. The relic was wrongly condemned, however, since the dating was poorly planned, marred by petty rivalries, and scientifically flawed. The result has never been confirmed by running a second sample. From studies done in the last ten years, it appears very likely that the dating is invalid, and that the Shroud is probably much older. It could actually be Christ’s burial cloth after all. For reasons known only to God and the inner sanctum at Turin, church authorities have refused all requests for a new C-14 measurement to be made.

The final stage in the desecration was a travesty carried out by aggressive "restorers" in 2002. Valuable scientific data was irretrievably destroyed, opportunities for research squandered, materials taken from the cloth without stringent controls, and repairs dating from 1534 that constituted part of the Shroud’s visual heritage were removed. This so-called "restoration" was conducted totally in secret, engineered by a small clique around the archbishop of Turin. It has been roundly condemned by most Shroud researchers as a conservation and scientific disaster. The relic and its study have been altered forever.

These things should not have happened. The reasons behind them are complicated, and I have tried to reconstruct the sequence of events and its causes, based on my own knowledge and notes, plus the accounts of others. One finds a mélange of stubborn, abrasive and/or arrogant personalities, blatant cronyism and opportunism, cloak-and-dagger intrigues, a political situation inherited from Machiavelli, and a pinch of anti-Americanism thrown in for good measure. And that is only considering the pro-Shroud factions!

But there are also the dedicated and enthusiastic scientists of the American scientific team STURP that studied the cloth in 1978, the grand old priests of the US Holy Shroud Guild, and some dynamic figures in Shroud research in Europe. These people have struggled for the truth about this most fascinating of all relics to be revealed.

This book focuses on the two major disasters that afflicted the Shroud in recent years. It is not intended to be a complete and up-to-date survey of research on the Shroud, but it does give the reader a general understanding of the subject. There is very little of a religious nature in the book; it deals mostly with personalities, how events unfolded, and the scientific issues related to the carbon-dating and conservation of the relic. A reader with no knowledge of these fields would have no difficulty reading this book.

Part I is a general overview of where the study of the relic stood in the early 1980s, and what the principal areas of contention were. Part II describes the lead-up to the carbon-dating of 1988 and its aftermath, which continues to the present day. Part III deals with the disastrous intervention, wrongly called a "restoration," that took place in 2002. Part IV reviews the current situation, new initiatives and the prospects for future research. The reader is left with the strong impression that the Turin Shroud still holds very important secrets to be discovered.

To read the 5-page Preface, Table of Contents and author biography, click on the front cover below, and then click on "Preview this book." The back cover can also be seen there.