Customer Reviews

Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The books is composed of five lectures on Early Oriental-Greek interactions: 1) Alphabetic Writing; 2) Orientalizing Features in Homer; 3) Oriental Wisdom Literature and Cosmogony; 5) Orpheus and Egypt; and 5)The Advent of the Magi (total, 124 pages plus bibligraphy and notes). I.E., no general framework is provided on Oriental-Greek relations, only some interesting but few issues are treated.In my opinion, that is rather poor for a book whose subtitle is "Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture". I would much rather reccomend "The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies"
by Thomas McEvilley.

read a really good and comprehensive review of this book at Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Reviewed by Molly M. Levine, Howard University
-------------------------------

With its user friendly tone and emphasis on ideas and interpretation,this slim book makes good on the author's promise to stick to the spirit of its origins in a 1996 lecture series at the Universita Ca Foscari of Venice on the now popular subject of cultural exchange in the ancient Mediterranean. Well before Bernal there was Burkert, who here speaks with the authority of one who has devoted a lifetime to once unpopular alliances of Classics with,inter alia, anthropology,evolutionary psychology, and the Near East.