Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, Volume 1) [Paperback]

Martin Bernal (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985 | Publication Date: February 1, 1991

Winner of the American Book Award and a Socialist Review Book Award What is classical about Classical Civilization? In one of the most audacious works of scholarship ever written, Martin Bernal challenges the whole basis 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 supressed 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--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, and Egypt in particular. Black Athena is a three-volume work. Volume 1 concentrates on the crucial period between 1785 and 1850, which saw the Romantic and racist reaction to the Enlightment and the French Revolution, and the consolidation of Northern expansion into other continents. In an unprecedented tour de force, Bernal makes meaningful links between a wide range of areas and disciplines--drama poetry, myth, theological controversy, esoteric religion, philosophy, biography, language, historical narrative, and the emergence of "modern scholarship." Martin Bernal is Professor Emeritus of Government Studies at Cornell University; he was formerly a Fellow at King's College, Cambridge.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A work which has much to offer the lay reader, and its multi-disciplinary sweep is refreshing: it is an important contribution to his 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, breathtaking bold in conception and passionately written... salutary, exciting, and in its historiographical aspects, convincing." -- G. W. Bowersock, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

"The next far in book.... A formidable work of intellectual history." -- Christian Science Monitor

About the Author

Martin Bernal is a professor of Government Studies at Cornell University; he was formerly a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.

Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (February 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813512778
• ISBN-13: 978-0813512778
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,403 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #7 in Books > History > Europe > Greece
  • #12 in Books > History > Africa > Egypt
  • #29 in Books > History > Ancient > Greece

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

189 of 242 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating for all the wrong reasons, August 20, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Acton, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, Volume 1) (Paperback)

By all reports Martin Bernal is a respected scholar. Although his professional studies have focused on China, he attacks the problems of ancient Mediterranean history, archaeology, linguistics, and modern European intellectual history with enormous verve, great erudition and amazing breadth. It's therefore fascinating to follow the thread of his argumentation and note at every turn just how wrongheaded it all is. Here is a serious scholar who seems to believe that everything written by Europeans in the 19th and 20th centuries is corrupted by their conscious or unconscious racism, but that Greek myths or the self-aggrandizing monument inscriptions of Egyptian pharaohs are to be taken as literal truth. Yes, racism played a role in the development of 19th- and 20th-century historical thinking, but so did increasing knowledge. It was possible to imagine that Greek philosophy, religion and mathematics sprang from an Egyptian source when the Egyptian language was unreadable, but with a real understanding of Egyptian writings it became clear that the content and aims of Egyptian thought and religion were just not compatible with later Greek culture. Likewise, it was easy to imagine Egyptian military dominance, and perhaps even colonization, of broad swaths of Europe and Asia until decade after decade of careful archaeological excavation failed to reveal any more evidence of Egyptian presence than could be attributed to trade. But just as Bernal claims (not entirely correctly) that conventional scholarship was tainted by racist assumptions, twisting the evidence to favor the position that Greece developed without significant Semitic or African influence, so does Bernal pick and choose his evidence to support the opposite conclusion. The problem is that in Bernal's case there just isn't a whole lot of real evidence he can use, so he's reduced to fabricating the flimsiest of etymological connections or elevating myths into reliable historical documents.

For the record, the Greek lexicon does not contain a large number of Egyptian or Semitic loan words. The fact that Egypt is situated in Africa does not make its inhabitants "black" in the modern sense (e.g., physically similar to the sub-Saharan African population) any more than living in Asia makes Syrians Chinese. There is no archaeological evidence suggesting any multi-year campaign of conquest by any Egyptian pharaoh, much less colonization of the Aegean by Egyptians or post-expulsion Hyksos. And, regardless of what Bernal seems to think, showing that something might conceivably have been so doesn't remotely begin to constitute proof that it was so.

Perhaps the saddest thing about Black Athena is the fuel it gives to the Afrocentrist movement, which seems to subsist on a feeling that people of African descent can only feel good about themselves if their ancestors can be shown to have been the real founders of European culture. In its own unfortunate way, this belief is as Eurocentric as the one Bernal imputes to 19th-century scholars. Why isn't Egyptian civilization, or more to the point that of ancient Nubia or the Mali Empire, important in and of itself? Black Athena offers its readers an attractive mirage, but what will they be left with if (and when) the mirage dissolves?

55 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Very Modern Myth, February 5, 2002

By 

J. Davies (Wiltshire, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, Volume 1) (Paperback)

Few books have caused as much scandal and controversy in the cloistered world of the classics as Black Athena. In this book, Martin Bernal argues with great clarity and a formidable amount of learning that the roots of classical Greek civilisation depended to a far greater extent than is generally acknowledged in Egypt and Phoenicia and that, from the late eighteenth century onwards, the racism (conscious or otherwise) of European scholars resulted in a kind of academic "cover-up", to the extent that nowadays this Eurocentric tradition has become so firmly entrenched in the canons of classical scholarship that it has contaminated all subsequent research.
Therein lies the virtue of this book. Any work which comes along and challenges the basic assumptions of any discipline is of great intrinsic value, as it forces the scholars to sit up and reconsider the foundations of their beliefs, and since Black Athena was first published there has been much "soul-searching" done by many classicists and ancient historians. Unfortunately, the book is deeply flawed in numerous respects. Firstly, the quality of the evidence he quotes is, at a generous assessment, flimsy. Bizarre and deeply questionable etymologies from Egyptian and the Semitic languages are no substitute for the complete lack of any archaeological evidence for a significant Egyptian presence in Greece in the period in question. His "unholy trinity" of Christianity, Romanticism and political conservatism which created the Eurocentricism supposedly inherent in the classics does not work - the best example of a historical person who subscribes to these views he could find was the poet Shelley, who was a radical atheist. Moreover, the entire premise of the book is entirely Eurocentric - why should African or Semitic civilisation need to be vindicated by contributing to European civilisation? Both the Hebrew culture of the Near East and the kingdoms of ancient Egypt were impressive enough in their own right - why does Bernal feel that in order to be valued they ought to have contributed to the roots of Europe? When Bernal devotes so much of his work to condemning 19th century scholarship for succumbing to "externalist" pressures, one can't escape the feeling that this is what vitiates "Black Athena" too. I am not closed to the possibility of Eastern influences on Greek culture - I accept that in terms of architecture, the visual arts, the social make up of the Minoan and Mycenean kingdoms and even the epics of Homer were to an extent influenced by Near Eastern or Egyptian precedent. But I cannot believe that the Greeks were incapable of innovation, which Bernal seems to imply, and nor do I accept that Egypt and Phoenicia need Europe in order to be admired. All in all, Black Athena is a fascinating and valuable book - the only flaw is that it is wrong.

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, July 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, Volume 1) (Paperback)

It is obvious that the thesis in this book is more an attempt to prove a hypothesis rather than to arrive at a conclussion through scientific research.

I was particularly disappointed to see that Mr Bental seems to have neglected to take into account facts that contradict his hypothesis while at the same time relying on some inaccurate research to prove it.
(e.g. Aristotle died 25 years before the library of Alexandria, from which Mr Bental claims Aristotle borrowed some of his ideas, was put together)

The book is unfortunately riddled with historical inaccuracies and although it makes an entertaining read fails to convenience the informed reader.

It is sad to see a bright academic deviating from scientific principles in support of cultural and ideological beliefs.