Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. Vol 1: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985. - book reviews

This is an important book. It is ambitious, thought-provoking, and exciting. It will be controversial as well. Martin Bernal-a professor of government at Cornell University and the son of the historian of science John Desmond Bernal-argues that Classical Greece, far from being the cradle of a distinctly European or Western civilization, was instead a derivative and thoroughly mixed Levantine culture with its roots firmly planted in Africa and Asia. Thus he forces us to rethink what is meant by the concept of Western civilization.

The book is also timely. It was conceived in the era when Roger Freeman, Nixon's key education advisor, told us that it was dangerous to produce a highly educated proletariat during times of crisis, because its members would not automatically and unquestioningly follow the orders of their leaders and bosses. It has been punished in a period when highly visible politicians and hack academics tout the uniqueness of the West and redefine what it encompasses; when education is being restructured in the United States; and when William J. Bennett, Reagan's Secretary of Education, argues that we should get "back to the basics" by requiring students to read the classics of Western civilization rather than think critically about what they mean. Bernal's book is a response to thc conditions in which it was written; its implications are unsettling. Clearly, it is not what Secretary Bennett or, more recently, Professor Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind, has in mind.

Bernal develops his argument in terms of the dynamic between two models used to account for the origins of ancient Greek civilization. The earlier one, which he calls the "Ancient Model," flourished in Classical Antiquity and held sway from then until about the 1830s. It argues that Egyptians and Phoenicians established colonies in Greece at various times during the second millenium B.C., that the interactions between the indigenous inhabitants and the colonists were complex, that Classical Greek culture was the product of these interactions, and that the Greeks continued to borrow from the African and Asian worlds for the next 2000 years.

This interpretive framework was challenged and virtually replaced by the "Aryan Model," which downplays the importance of Egyptian or Phoenician influence in Greece or denies it altogether. In this perspective, Greek culture and, with it, Western civilization originated when Indo-European-speaking northerners overwhelmed and mixed with the local, pre-Hellenic inhabitants of what is now Greece and the Aegean world. The Aryan Model appeared during the first half of the nineteenth century and has been dominant until the present day. Bernal suggests that the Aryan Model became hegemonic during the nincteenth century, not because it explained the facts more adequately or resolved issues more suitably, but rather because it conformed better with the conceptions of progress, romanticism, racialism, and imperialism that dominated the times.

The arguments Bernal develops to support his views are complex. They are interwoven and operate simultaneously at three levels. He evaluates the evidence on which the models are based; examines the historical contexts in which the models were constructed by intellectuals whose views resonated with social-class and wider debates; and considers the implications both of the models themselves and of transforming them in light of current conditions and possibilities for future action.

At the most basic level, Bernal reassesses the significance and implications of an enormous amount of philological, archaeological, and historical evidence that bears on the question of the origins of Greek society. He also constructs a new perspective on the question by bringing new information into sharp focus. He draws freely from disparate fields of knowledge, several of which seem to have been deliberately narrowed in scope and made more insulated from each other over the last fifty or hundred years. By not encroaching on each others' turf the practitioners of these fields have maintained the separation of both the knowledge they have produced and the arenas in which it is discussed.

By crossing the boundaries of established disciplines and mixing evidence that is not usually discussed in the same breath, Bernal has adopted a procedure that is virtually guaranteed to annoy those technicians who resent incursions into their domains by outsiders or the uninitiated, i.e., individuals who lack the appropriate certification or credentials. Scholars working in these established disciplines will almost certainly challenge various lines of inference Bernal uses to construct his larger argument. In the debates that will develop concerning his analyses and interpretations of various pieces of evidence, Bernal will undoubtedly win some battles and lose others. But in the end he will win the war, if he has not in fact already done so. One reason for this is the tightness and logic of his arguments. Another is that, while scholars in the various relevant fields may view Bernal as an outsider or an interloper, they cannot easily dismiss him as a crank or a crackpot, since he has adopted the methods of the various disciplines and followed their established, generally agreed upon procedures and canons for evaluating evidence.

At a second level, Bernal examines the concrete social and historical conditions in which the two models flourished. He exposes the complex, mediated relationship between the development of the early phase of industrial capitalism (ca. 1780-1848) on the one hand, and the elaboration of the Aryan Model on the other. This is the social history of science and the sociology of knowledge practiced at their best. His analysis of the circumstances that led to the shift from the Ancient to the Aryan Model and to the century-long hegemony of thc latter is compelling. It will undoubtedly be contested by those who insist that archaeology and classical philology, for example, are relatively esoteric and harmless activities pursued by absent-minded professors. However, those who do so fall to take account of the more active involvements that some of the very same absent-minded scholars have had in imperialist expansion-Lawrence of Arabia, for instance, was an archaeologist, and more than one archaeologist, philologist, or historian has served in the intelligence branches of the various imperialist states during the last century. Bernal's argument that scholars have audiences in mind and are subject to the various social and intellectual currents of their milieus as they struggle with evidence will also not appeal to those individuals who believe that scientists are, or should be, completely insulated from the environments in which they live and work.

At a third level, Bernal shows how discussions about the origins of Greek civilization that occurred in the last century are relevant today. The Aryan Model is still deployed to buttress views about and policies toward peoples living around the eastern end ofthe Mediterranean. While the proponents of the Aryan Model "are increasingly prepared to admit that West Semites played a substantial part in the creation of Greek culture, there is still a far greater reluctance to admit fundamental Egyptian influence on it." (p. 437) By interjecting new lines of evidence and argumentation concerning the role of ancient Egypt, Bernal is changing the contours of the debate about the origins of Greek civilization and ensuring that groups previously excluded from the arena of discourse will now take part in the debate. This means that the writings of black intellectuals like George B. M. James or Cheikh Anta Diop who recognize thc formative role played by Egypt and by African peoples in the development of Greek civilization must be taken seriously.

Up to now, unfortunately, their work, which challenges both the validity and utility of the Aryan Model, has not been taken seriously in the academy, nor is it widely read outside the black community. Bernal finds this both outrageous and enraging. That his book will suddenly legitimize positions argued for decades in both Afro-Amerlcan and African discourse on history exposes the depth and intensity of thc racism that still persists in the academy and in the established academic disciplines. Thus, it. is a sad commentary on the current state of affairs, but it is not one without hope. It makes racism in the academy public.

Black Athena is the first volume of a trilogy. In the forthcoming volumes, the author will examine how the Ancient and Aryan Models were developed and deployed in various disciplines and elaborate what he calls a Revised Ancient Model to consider previously inexplicable aspects of ancient Greek culture. Given the current state of academic discourse, these forthcoming volumes will undoubtedly be controversial. They also promise to be as thought-provoking and illuminating as the first.

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