
Classical civilisation, Martin Bernal argues, has deep roots in Afro-Asiatic cultures. But these Afro-Asiatic influences have been systematically ignored, denied, or suppressed since the eighteenth century
- chiefly for racist reasons. The popular view is that Greek civilisation was the result of the conquest of a sophisticated but weak native population by vigorous Indo-European speakers--or Aryans--from the North. But the Classical Greeks, Bernal argues, knew nothing of this ” Aryan model.” They did not see their political institutions, science, philosophy, or religion as original, but rather as derived from the East in general, & Egypt in particular. Black Athena is a three-volume work. Volume 1 concentrates on the crucial period between 1785 & 1850, which saw the Romantic & racist reaction to the Enlightenment & the French Revolution, & the consolidation of Northern expansion into other continents. In an unprecedented tour de force, Bernal makes meaningful links between a wide range of areas & disciplines--drama poetry, myth, theological controversy, esoteric religion, philosophy, biography, language, historical narrative, & the emergence of ”modern scholarship.”