4 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Fantasy In Place of History, June 11, 2010
This review is from: Arabia Felix from the Time of the Queen of Sheba: Eighth Century B.C. to First Century A.D. (Paperback)
This book is 'His-Story' by omission by an apparent overt racist.
One of the first things I did was to look at the index only to realize the author makes no mention of Nubia, Kush, Africa, and only one listing of Ethiopia, and that citation was to suggest a Sabaean influence on Ethiopia. For those who don't know, the period for which this book supposedly focuses - the Eighth century B.C. to the First Century A.D. - is the period in which Nubia ruled the Nile-Valley, from southeast Africa to the Mediterranean - i.e. including Kemet (Egypt)[8th - 7th century], and east to India (i.e. the Nagas). Nubia (later Ethiopia) also ruled Saba (Ancient Arabia)- its first sedentary inhabitants were pastoral Nubians. Therefore one might ask: How does one write a history of Saba (Arabia Felix, Ancient Arabia) and omit its ruling people unless one has an agenda? There is no doubt that this author is a racist and has written an extremely flawed work. A work that might be more-so designated a fantasy than a history.
For example, with respect to a hydraulic system in Ancient Arabia (Saba, Arabia Felix) created as early as the sixth-century B.C., yet repaired as late as the sixth-century A.D. he writes: In 549 A.D., Abraha, an Ethiopian king of Yemen, had inscribed on a large stela a description of the repair work required on more than one occasion and on a grand scale..." (p. 20) How is that Abraha of Ethiopia is King of Yemen yet the author makes no mention of any relationships between Ethiopia and Yemen (Ancient Arabia), except for this surprise admission?
All of Ancient Arabia, once considered a part of Africa, was inhabited by African people - hunter-gatherers, herders, and farmers before the advent of White nomadic invaders, yet, somehow the author has them all disappear, and as though recasting characters for a play, replaces the original Black inhabitants with White ones.
Nubia, the first people to domesticate animals and diffuse the `pastoral way of life' and `pastoral faith' throughout the ancient world - India, China, Crete, Greece, Western Europe, etc. did so in Ancient Arabia as well. It doesn't matter whether or not you knew this going in, it does, however, matter that you get the relationship between Nubia/Ethiopia/Africa and Ancient Arabia when you read this book.
That this is mere racist propaganda and a work of `History and Identity Theft' it rates a negative-five (-5).
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