Black Athena, Volume 3

What is classical about Classical civilization? In one of the most audacious works of scholarship ever written, Martin Bernal challenges the foundation of our thinking about this question. Classical civilization, he argues, has deep roots in Afroasiatic cultures. But these Afroasiatic influences have been systematically ignored, denied or suppressed since the eighteenth century--chiefly for racist reasons.

The popular view is that Greek civilization was the result of the conquest of a sophisticated but weak native population by vigorous Indo-European speakers--Aryans--from the North. But the Classical Greeks, Bernal argues, knew nothing of this "Aryan model." They did not see their institutions as original, but as derived from the East and from Egypt in particular.

This long-awaited third and final volume of the series is concerned with the linguistic evidence that contradicts the Aryan Model of ancient Greece. Bernal shows how nearly 40 percent of the Greek vocabulary has been plausibly derived from two Afroasiatic languages - Ancient Egyptian and West Semitic. He also reveals how these derivations are not limited to matters of trade, but extended to the sophisticated language of politics, religion, and philosophy. This evidence, according to Bernal, greatly strengthens the hypothesis that in Greece an Indo-European-speaking population was culturally dominated by Ancient Egyptian and West Semitic speakers.

Provocative, passionate, and colossal in scope, this volume caps a thoughtful rewriting of history that has been stirring academic and political controversy since the publication of the first volume.

Black Athena, an audacious three-volume series, strikes at the heart of today's most heated culture wars. Martin Bernal challenges Eurocentric attitudes by calling into question conventional explanations for the origins of classical civilization. Provocative, passionate, and colossal in scope, this thoughtful rewriting of history continues to stir academic and political controversy.

"[Bernal's] multifaceted assault on academic complacency is an important contribution to the development of a more open, historical, and culturally oriented post-processual archaeology."-- "Current Anthropology"
"[Martin Bernal] has forced scholars to reexamine the roots of Western civilization."-- "Newsweek"
"A breathtaking panoply of archaeological artifacts, texts, and myths."-- "Toronto Star"
"A formidable work of intellectual history, one that demonstrates that the politics of knowledge is never far from national politics."-- "Christian Science Monitor"
"A monumental and path-breaking work."--Edward Said
"Bernal's enterprise - his attack on the Aryan model and his promotion of a new paradigm - will profoundly mark the next century's perception of the origins of Greek civilization and the role of Ancient Egypt."-- "Transition"
"Challenges the racism implicit in the recent 'cultural literacy' movement."-- "Socialist Review"
"Colossal.... Bernal aims to revise current understanding of Ancient Middle Eastern history by taking seriously the ancient Greeks' legends that portrayed much in their civilization as originating in the Middle East, especially Egypt."-- "New York Times Book Review"
"Demands to be taken seriously... Every page that Bernal writes is educating and enthralling. To agree with all his thesis may be a sign of naivety, but not to have spent time in his company is a sign of nothing at all."-- "Times Literary Supplement"
"Martin Bernal has managed to make the subject of Ancient Greece both popular and controversial."-- "Baltimore Sun"
"Black Athena is a powerfully written and brilliantly researched book that relentlessly unveils the historical and cultural African origins of Western civilization. Still a must read for all those in search of truth."
--Ama Mazama "Professor of Africology and African American Studies, Temple University"
"A serious work that deals in a serious way with many of the principal issues of Aegean history in the second millennium B.C., and one can ask little more of any historical work."--Stanley M. Burstein, California State University "Classic Philology"
"A work which has much to offer the lay reader, and its multi-disciplinary sweep is refreshing: it is an important contribution to historiography and the sociology of knowledge, written with elegance, wit, and self-awareness... a thrilling journey... his account is as gripping a tale of scholarly detection and discovery as one could hope to find."--Margaret Drabble "The Observer"
"An astonishing work, breathtakingly bold in conception and passionately written... salutary, exciting, and, in its historiographical aspects, convincing."--G. W. Bowersock "Journal of Interdisciplinary History"
"Bernal has ample justification for calling into question many widely accepted hypotheses.... He shows that Egypt and its culture were misrepresented or simply ignored by European writers."--Mary Lefkowitz "New Republic"
"Bernal's material is fascinating, his mind is sharp, and his analyses convince."--Richard Jenkyns "Times Higher Educational Supplement"
"Bernal's work and the stir it has occasioned have caused ancient historians and archaeologists to undertake a major reexamination of methods and motives."--Robert L. Pounder "American Historical Review"
"His book should be welcome to both classicists and ancient historians, most of whom will, now at least, be inclined to agree with him."--R. A. McNeal "Franklin and Marshall College"
"In a spectacular undertaking, Martin Bernal sets out to... restore the credibility of what he calls the Ancient Model of the beginnings of Greek civilizations... Bernal makes an exotic interloper in Classical studies. He comes to them with two outstanding gifts: a remarkable flair for the sociology - perhaps one should say politics - of knowledge, and a formidable linguistic proficiency... The story told by Bernal, with many fascinating twists and turns and quite a few entertaining digressions, is... a critical inquiry into a large part of the European imagination... a retrospect of ingenious and often sardonic erudition."--Perry Anderson "The Guardian"
Martin Bernal's Black Athena is nothing short of a monumental achievement in scholarship that re-oriented and transformed serious study of ancient civilizations. It remains a soaring accomplishment of classical erudition of the Afroasiatic foundation of Greek history.--Molefi Kete Asante "author of The History of Africa, Professor, Department of Africology, Temple University"