In this collection of 20 essays, scholars in a broad range of disciplines confront the claims made by Martin Bernal in ""Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization"". In that work, Bernal proposed a radical reinterpretation of the roots of classical civilization, contending that ancient Greek culture derived from Egypt and Phoenicia and that European scholars have been biased against the notion of Egyptian and Phoenician influence on Western civilization. The contributors to this volume argue that Bernal's claims are exaggerated and in many cases unjustified. Topics covered include: race and physical anthropology; the question of an Egyptian invasion of Greece; the origins of Greek language, philosophy and science; and racism and anti-Semitism in classical scholarship. In the conclusion to the volume, the editors propose a different scholarly framework for understanding the relationship between the cultures of the ancient Near East and Greece and the origins of Western civilization.

About the Author
Mary R. Lefkowitz is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Wellesley College. She is author of Not Out of Africa and coeditor of Women's Life in Greece and Rome.|Guy MacLean Rogers, professor of Greek and Latin and history at Wellesley College, is author of The Sacred Identity of Ephesos: Foundation Myths of a Roman City.



Book Information
ISBN 9780807845554
Author Guy MacLean Rogers
Format Paperback
Page Count 544
Imprint The University of North Carolina Press
Publisher The University of North Carolina Press
Weight(grams) 796g