How Earl Sinclair didn´t reach America

Due to technical errors (or a vast Illuminati conspiracy?), this review was never posted by Amazon on either of their websites. 

This issue of “New Orkney Antiquarian Journal” (Vol 2, 2002) contains an article by Brian Smith titled “Earl Henry Sinclair´s fictitious trip to America”. Henry Sinclair was a 14^th century Scottish nobleman who doubled as Norwegian earl of the Orkney Island. According to alt-history claims, Sinclair discovered (or reached) America almost 100 years before Columbus together with two Venetian navigators, the Zeno brothers. I think Smith´s article does a good job debunking this claim. The Sinclair pseudo-saga has been combined with other, even wilder, alt-history claims about secret bloodlines, the Holy Grail, Gnostic Templar heretics, and what not. (I´m still waiting for the Twelve Tribes of Israel to show up, so can somebody please tell the local neighborhood Gnostics about British Israelism and Herbert W Armstrong?) These wilder claims are only briefly addressed in the article. A piquant detail is that Brian Smith is a friend of Niven Sinclair, who (I think) believes that his illustrious ancestor really did reach America!