Non-Western Worldview

[Neshant]

If you read the old testament bible, you`d realise there is much bigotry and hatred spred against peaceful Pagan people including encouragement to kill them and destroy their religion.

Monotheism is all about destroying other people`s religion and surplanting it with the one-angry-male-god theory.

[ramana]

Parallels between Rome and America:

American/Roman Empire

[SRoy]

from the same website, a background lesson on the Germanic peoples. it's a different point of view from the usual Western narrative. interesting read.

http://www.odinsvolk.ca/GermanicPeoples.htm

Look at the tribe names. Almost Sanskrit, PIE origin.

[ramana]

Michael Mitterauer, "Why Europe?: The Medieval Origins of Its Special Path"

Publisher: University Of Chicago Press | ISBN 10: 0226532534 | 2010 | 400 pages |

Why did capitalism and colonialism arise in Europe and not elsewhere? Why were parliamentarian and democratic forms of government founded there? What factors led to Europe’s unique position in shaping the world? Thoroughly researched and persuasively argued, Why Europe? tackles these classic questions with illuminating results.
Michael Mitterauer traces the roots of Europe’s singularity to the medieval era, specifically to developments in agriculture. While most historians have located the beginning of Europe’s special path in the rise of state power in the modern era, Mitterauer establishes its origins in rye and oats. These new crops played a decisive role in remaking the European family, he contends, spurring the rise of individualism and softening the constraints of patriarchy. Mitterauer reaches these conclusions by comparing Europe with other cultures, especially China and the Islamic world, while surveying the most important characteristics of European society as they took shape from the decline of the Roman empire to the invention of the printing press. Along the way, Why Europe? offers up a dazzling series of novel hypotheses to explain the unique evolution of European culture.

[brihaspati]

^^but there are also studies that try to connect "rye" with a particular fungus, and which in certain weather patterns increased the presence of psychotropic and hallucinogenic substances in the harvested grain. Such increases probably influenced mass hysteria connected to dramatic increases in accusations of black-magic and witchcraft causing many more burnings and lynchings and hangings.

Dunno - does he also consider that in his stride? Or why does Sado-masochism as part of "sexual repertoire" appear very early in European civilization - from Graeco-Roman times, and not really significantly in any other culture? Was that uniquely due to "rye" etc?

[ramana]

John Darwin - The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970

Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (October 30, 2009) | Language: English | ISBN-10: 0521302080 | 814 pages

The British Empire, wrote Adam Smith, 'has hitherto been not an empire, but the project of an empire' and John Darwin offers a magisterial global history of the rise and fall of that great imperial project. The British Empire, he argues, was much more than a group of colonies ruled over by a scattering of British expatriates until eventual independence. It was, above all, a global phenomenon. Its power derived rather less from the assertion of imperial authority than from the fusing together of three different kinds of empire: the settler empire of the 'white dominions'; the commercial empire of the City of London; and 'Greater India' which contributed markets, manpower and military muscle. This unprecedented history charts how this intricate imperial web was first strengthened, then weakened and finally severed on the rollercoaster of global economic, political and geostrategic upheaval on which it rode from beginning to end.

Now compare and contrast the British empire with Aemrican Imperium and see where the defects were.

I think it was in mistaking Pakistan for India by the US. They thought the martial races BS makes TSP the essential keystone to the new Imperium. With descent of TSP into failure by mid 90s, the American Imperium is also crumbling.

[svinayak]

Now compare and contrast the British empire with Aemrican Imperium and see where the defects were.

I think it was in mistaking Pakistan for India by the US. They thought the martial races BS makes TSP the essential keystone to the new Imperium. With descent of TSP into failure by mid 90s, the American Imperium is also crumbling.

The original plan was that India would not exist but Pakistna would be largest state in the sub continent and would create a large geo graphic entity with a military which would serve the US in its world domination.

[devesh]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... -3,00.html

SPIEGEL: Where do you draw the boundary of the West?

Todd: In fact, only Great Britain, France and the United States, in that historic order, constitute the core of the West. But not Germany.

SPIEGEL: Are you serious?

Todd: Oh, it's fun to provoke a representative of "the German news magazine." What I'm saying is that Germany contributed nothing to the liberal democratic movement in Europe.

SPIEGEL: What about the Hambach Festival in 1832, the March Revolution in 1848, the national assembly in St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt, the 1918 November Revolution, the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, (former Chancellor Konrad) Adenauer's integration with the West and the opening of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 brought about peacefully by the people?

Todd: Okay, the postwar history is all very well and good, but it had to be put into motion by the Western Allies. Everything that happened earlier failed. Authoritarian government systems consistently prevailed, while democratic conditions had already predominated in England, America and France for a long time. Germany produced the two worst totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century. Even the greatest philosophers, like Kant and Hegel, were, unlike David Hume in England or Voltaire in France, not exactly beacons of political liberalism. No, Germany's immense contribution to European cultural history is something completely different.

SPIEGEL: And now you're going to say something nice?

Todd: The Reformation -- and, with it, the strengthening of the individual, supported by his knowledge -- and the spread of reading through the printing press -- that's the German contribution. The fight over the Reformation was waged in a journalistic manner, with pamphlets and flyers. The spread of literacy among the masses was invented in Germany. Prussia, and even the small Catholic states, had a higher literacy rate than France early on. Literacy came to France from the east, that is, from Germany. Germany was a nation of education and a constitutional state long before it became a democracy. But Martin Luther also proved that religious reforms did not by any means require the support of a spirit of liberalism.

SPIEGEL: But Germany's Sonderweg, or "special path," has now come to an end.

Todd: Well, I believe that the Germans still feel a secret and, at the same time, slightly narcissistic fear, as if they sensed that they are not quite part of the West. It seems to me that their preferred form of government is the grand coalition, not the abrupt change of power that occurs in France and the Anglo-Saxon countries. Perhaps Germany would rather be like a large Switzerland or a large Sweden, a consensus democracy in which the ideological camps come to resemble one another and the political extended family in the government takes care of everything.

SPIEGEL: What's wrong with that?

Todd: Nothing. The cultural difference between Germany and France shouldn't be buried under avowals of friendship. France is individualistic and egalitarian, at least far more so than Germany, where the tradition of the unequal, authoritarian tribal family still has an impact today, as in the debate over the right maternal image. Perhaps this also explains why Germany, despite its catastrophic birth rate, has so much trouble with immigration, and yet vastly outpaces France with its technical and industrial capabilities.

SPIEGEL: Does that mean that the German-French friendship is merely an illusion?

Todd: No, but the relationship is certainly shaped by an unspoken rivalry. However, if the European Union recognizes its diversity, even its anthropological differences, instead of trying to force everyone into the same mold with the false incantation of a shared European civilization, then Europe will also be able to treat the pluralism of cultures in the world in a reasonable and enlightened way. I'm not sure that the United States can do that.

good. some people are realizing.

read the last line; the comment about US "not being able to do that." very interesting indeed. the full implications of that line are explained in the preceding two sentences.

[ramana]

Who is Todd? Sounds like a stuck up Anglo-Saxon. It was refrain from such toads that drove Germany to totalitarian systems.

[devesh]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... -3,00.html

Emmanuel Todd, 60, studied political science in Paris and history in Cambridge. He has coducted research at the National Institute of Demographic Studies in Paris since 1984. Todd sees himself as an "empirical Hegelian" who recognizes a universal course of history. For Todd, family structures, population and educational policy factors are more important than the economic system. He has published many respected studies, such as "The Final Fall: An Essay on the Decomposition of the Soviet Sphere" (1976), "The Fate of Immigrants" (1994)," "The Economic Illusion" (1998), "After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order"(2002) and "A Convergence of Civilizations: The Transformation of Muslim Societies Around the World" (2007), about the changes in the Islamic world. An English translation of the book was published this month.

[ramana]

Devesh, Earlier versions of Todd, in the 18th century used to disparage the Germans as Huns or tribals.

That led German intellegentia to the AIT to imagine a higher ancestry for the Germans and on to Hitler who wanted a new religion without the Semitic origins. So this Todd is continuing the Anglo-Saxon rivalry with the Germans.

Europe has two strands Latinised (Roman, Spanish, French, Anglo-Saxon, American) and Germanised (German, Austria, Russia). The history of Europe is the struggle between the two. The two sides are not cast in concrete but switch sides based on temporary advantage.

[devesh]

^^^
Germany received a huge blow from '41-'45. 1000 years of gradual German immigration and settlement in East-Central Europe was overturned within a few years. Germany will *never* regain that edge and vibrancy again. their best hope is to try to rejuvenate their societies by combining the Germano-sphere countries into close cultural, social, and economic ties.

[Yogi_G]

Brown and Yellow Man's Burden

[abhischekcc]

^^but there are also studies that try to connect "rye" with a particular fungus, and which in certain weather patterns increased the presence of psychotropic and hallucinogenic substances in the harvested grain. Such increases probably influenced mass hysteria connected to dramatic increases in accusations of black-magic and witchcraft causing many more burnings and lynchings and hangings.

Dunno - does he also consider that in his stride? Or why does Sado-masochism as part of "sexual repertoire" appear very early in European civilization - from Graeco-Roman times, and not really significantly in any other culture? Was that uniquely due to "rye" etc?

Sado masochism, homosexuality, and pedophilia are all major sexual deviant behaviour is Europe's 'great' men, including Socrates and associates.

[abhischekcc]

Now compare and contrast the British empire with Aemrican Imperium and see where the defects were.

I think it was in mistaking Pakistan for India by the US. They thought the martial races BS makes TSP the essential keystone to the new Imperium. With descent of TSP into failure by mid 90s, the American Imperium is also crumbling.

The original plan was that India would not exist but Pakistna would be largest state in the sub continent and would create a large geo graphic entity with a military which would serve the US in its world domination.

Not very well known, but it is Britain that is responsible for America's pakiphilia. Brits created pakistan (and Israel) to bookend Middle East and its oil wells. After WW2, they made a concious decision to turn over all their assets to US, and in turn got a very favourable influence in the American imperial court. They helped turn America away from India and towards Pakistan, and maintaining a unspoken hostility between US and India.

[svinayak]

Not very well known, but it is Britain that is responsible for America's pakiphilia. Brits created pakistan (and Israel) to bookend Middle East and its oil wells. After WW2, they made a concious decision to turn over all their assets to US, and in turn got a very favourable influence in the American imperial court. They helped turn America away from India and towards Pakistan, and maintaining a unspoken hostility between US and India.

Read Caroe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_Caroe

After returning from India in 1947, he wrote extensively. His strategic ideas proved influential:
“ At about this time there were those in Washington, looking for ways to secure the oil resources and practice containment in the middle east. The formulations of Sir Olaf Caroe attracted attention and soon found favour in official circles. His article in the March 1949 number of Round Table and his 1951 book, Wells of Power, led to invitations from the state and defence departments to visit Washington.[4]

http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/C ... 56.extract

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11636

[brihaspati]

X-posting:
In any connected graph - if all nodes connect to a single node over and above being connected to a few others, then depending on mutual dependence - that single master node gains importance above everything. If all needs satisfied through this master node, lateral edges get weakened. But if after that, the single edge connecting to the master node becomes weakened - the individual gets completely cut off.

[ramana]

X-posted...

Even though the modern West claims Judeo-Christian inheritance over a layer of Greco-Roman culture, the true roots are ancient Egypt and all its flaws of godly kings and empires. So try ot read this book and see how Ancient Egypt lives in the West.


Toby Wilkinson, "The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt"
Ran House | 2011 | ISBN: 0679604294, 0553805533 | 656 pages |

In this landmark work, one of the world’s most renowned Egyptologists tells the epic story of this great civilization, from its birth as the first nation-state to its final absorption into the Roman Empire—three thousand years of wild drama, bold spectacle, and unforgettable characters.

Award-winning scholar Toby Wilkinson captures not only the lavish pomp and artistic grandeur of this land of pyramids and pharaohs but for the first time reveals the constant propaganda and repression that were its foundations. Drawing upon forty years of archaeological research, Wilkinson takes us inside an exotic tribal society with a pre-monetary economy and decadent, divine kings who ruled with all-too-recognizable human emotions.

Here are the years of the Old Kingdom, where Pepi II, made king as an infant, was later undermined by rumors of his affair with an army general, and the Middle Kingdom, a golden age of literature and jewelry in which the benefits of the afterlife became available for all, not just royalty—a concept later underlying Christianity. Wilkinson then explores the legendary era of the New Kingdom, a lost world of breathtaking opulence founded by Ahmose, whose parents were siblings, and who married his sister and transformed worship of his family into a national cult. Other leaders include Akhenaten, the “heretic king,” who with his wife Nefertiti brought about a revolution with a bold new religion; his son Tutankhamun, whose dazzling tomb would remain hidden for three millennia; and eleven pharaohs called Ramesses, the last of whom presided over the militarism, lawlessness, and corruption that caused a crucial political and societal decline.

Riveting and revelatory, filled with new information and unique interpretations, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt will become the standard source about this great civilization, one that lasted—so far—longer than any other.

[svinayak]

Local Egyptian museum has lot of researchers and was always curious why

[Theo_Fidel]

West traces origins from Atlantis. Egypt is eulogized as the first civilization of Atlanteans.

Very similar to the men of old from Numenor. It is a recurring theme.

[svinayak]

Download this book free here


http://ebookee.org/The-Rise-and-Fall-of ... 36029.html

The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt By Toby Wilkinson
Publisher: Ran dom Hou se 2010 | 672 Pages | ISBN: 0747599491 | EPUB + PDF | 7 MB + 15 MB



The story of Ancient Egypt and the extraordinary civilisation that flourished along the banks of the River Nile can seem like a gorgeous pageant studded with exceptional events. Among them are the building of the pyramids, the conquest of Nubia, Akhenaten's religious revolution, the power and beauty of Nefertiti, the life and death of Tutankhamun, the ruthlessness of Ramesses, Alexander the Great's invasion, and Cleopatra's fatal entanglement with Rome which led to the fall of Ptolemaic Egypt. But while three thousand years of pharaonic civilisation have all the ingredients of an epic novel - glittering courts, dynastic intrigues, murky assassinations and epic battles; individual stories of heroism and skulduggery, of triumph and tragedy; and, powerful women and tyrannical kings - the real historical story is even more surprising and far more interesting.

The Ancient Egyptians were the first group of people to share a common culture, outlook and identity within a defined geographical territory governed by a single political authority - concepts of nationhood that continue to dominate the planet. As the world's first nation-state, the history of Ancient Egypt is above all the story of the attempt to unite a disparate realm and defend it against hostile forces from within and without. In this magnificent history, Toby Wilkinson combines grand narrative sweep with detailed knowledge of hieroglyphs and the iconography of power, to reveal Ancient Egypt in all its complexity.

For the first time we see the relentless propaganda, the cut-throat politics, the brutality and repression that lay behind the appearance of unchanging monarchy as well as the extraordinary architectural and cultural achievements for which it is justly famous.

[brihaspati]

X-posted...

Even though the modern West claims Judeo-Christian inheritance over a layer of Greco-Roman culture, the true roots are ancient Egypt and all its flaws of godly kings and empires. So try ot read this book and see how Ancient Egypt lives in the West.


Toby Wilkinson, "The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt"
Ran House | 2011 | ISBN: 0679604294, 0553805533 | 656 pages |

In this landmark work, one of the world’s most renowned Egyptologists tells the epic story of this great civilization, from its birth as the first nation-state to its final absorption into the Roman Empire—three thousand years of wild drama, bold spectacle, and unforgettable characters.

Award-winning scholar Toby Wilkinson captures not only the lavish pomp and artistic grandeur of this land of pyramids and pharaohs but for the first time reveals the constant propaganda and repression that were its foundations. Drawing upon forty years of archaeological research, Wilkinson takes us inside an exotic tribal society with a pre-monetary economy and decadent, divine kings who ruled with all-too-recognizable human emotions.

Here are the years of the Old Kingdom, where Pepi II, made king as an infant, was later undermined by rumors of his affair with an army general, and the Middle Kingdom, a golden age of literature and jewelry in which the benefits of the afterlife became available for all, not just royalty—a concept later underlying Christianity. Wilkinson then explores the legendary era of the New Kingdom, a lost world of breathtaking opulence founded by Ahmose, whose parents were siblings, and who married his sister and transformed worship of his family into a national cult. Other leaders include Akhenaten, the “heretic king,” who with his wife Nefertiti brought about a revolution with a bold new religion; his son Tutankhamun, whose dazzling tomb would remain hidden for three millennia; and eleven pharaohs called Ramesses, the last of whom presided over the militarism, lawlessness, and corruption that caused a crucial political and societal decline.

Riveting and revelatory, filled with new information and unique interpretations, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt will become the standard source about this great civilization, one that lasted—so far—longer than any other.

Well there is a theory that Egypt was the birthplace of Mosaic philosophy, and given that there is some archeological support for "intolerance" of pre-existing polymorphic Egyptian religion -from Akhenaten, and concentration on one "form" onlee, as imposed by the "God-king", or "representative" of god on earth, or the divine-voice through whom god revealed, or both the "son" of as well as "actual manifestation" of "God" on earth - could very well have given shape to Christianity.

The thing is they try desperately to fix "Atalantis" within the "Med", in Santorini specifically. Even the recent Spanish claim is strongly disputed. But the archeological timing etc then contradict the Atlantean origin of Egyptian civilization from Santorinian origins since that particular cataclysm happened around 1600 BCE, some 1500 years later than that agreed upon start date of the Egyptian experiment with civilization. So Plato is dissed as spinning a fable, or erring in believing Egyptian spin-doctor priests who wanted to show off claiming fantastic ancient origins like 10,000 BCE for the "floods" having swallowed the original homelands of the "gods".

Now there is a rival claim of the Atlantis being in the Andes with some good underlying arguments. But what is missed in all this is that at a time when far ocean travel or crossings are supposed to have been impossible - circa 10,000 BCE - and when there was no Santorini cataclysm, why would the "gods" come from distant lands to pick onlee on Egypt - since there would be many other spots to settle on. What was so specific to Egypt - not available anywhere else in the many ice-age refugia or newly-opening up or renewed flowing rivers for agricultural civilizations?

Isn't it likely that a maritime trading port based civilization can only survive with a network of similarly trading coastal port cities, and the place likely to have supported sucha civilization in close proximity to Egypt would be the Indian coasts of the Arabian Sea and Indian ocean? Given there are already indications of island/port based urbanization off the Indian western coasts which disappeared below the sea with rising waters from the post-glacial melt. What if Atlantis was an island port city off the western coasts of India!

[brihaspati]

Just to add - I posted earlier that - ancient Egyptians appeared to have represented alphabet/glyphs without "vowels", so that it is now recognized that pronunciations of ancient Egyptian place names could be off the mark in modern usage. Extracting the original name given by Egyptians to the lower delta with "consonants" - I got k-r-m-t [karama(e)ti is the rough modern rendition] - which for me was close to "krisna-mrittika". Ironically apparently the name k-r-m-t actually stood for "black earth/soil". Similarly the upper more arid and red/desert area was called - d-r-s-t - and meaning red/dusty for me close enough to "dhusar-..".

We also had the idea from Parag ji - about the Sarai-Hagar symbolism. Which for me was also an indication of possible two communities from the mouths of Saraswati-Gharghara in conflict, migrating, putting roots in Egypt and returning as part of a maritime culture that linked western India and Egypt in the late glacial-post-glacial period.

I think we should explore the possibility of Atlantis in Gujarat or further down. Maybe an ancestral city of Ravana's folks! If it is unacceptable for the Med - they will have to disparage the whole concept of Atlantis, or accept Indian origins.

[Prem]

Is this why they say that rise of Indic will change the Anarya world for ever by unveiling the face of truth covered with Mlecchic Mithihas ?

[abhishek_sharma]

David Marquand on the End of the West

[ramana]

Old post of mine in IF:

Dhu,
Another book is "Indo-German Identifcation". by Robert Cowan

It gives avery clear track record of how the Europeans viewed the idea of India and sought to get out of Judiac origins theory. It has later chapters where they go voer the top.

Google Books:

Indo-German Identification

The big idea is there were two main streams in Europe: Latinification and Germanism.

Latinification as it was already normatized by Judeo-Christian ideas had the early lead and did not question the Bibilical account for they benefited from it.

The Germanism was reaction to the Latinised monoploy and sought to assert itself. The first concrete step was the Holy Roman Empire which was Germanic. This is approximately 9 centuries after Rome conquered the Goths who are Germanic. Later it launched Protestant movement which led to Church Reformation. The English who are really Latinised derivatives managed to colonise ahead of the Germanic landlubbers and confined them to the continent. The war of 1760 saw the rise of Prussia, Russia as continental powers.

The events of WWI and WWII are part of the Germanic breakout of the older Latinised/Roman imperial order.

[ramana]

Apostle Paul and the Early Church Fathers conquered ancient Greece by forcibly secularising Greek society. They divided the unity of Greek religion and mythology from Greek philosophy and philosophic terminology. They then secularised and appropriated Greek philosophic terminology and took the Greek religious concept of an Unknown God for themselves. The religious vacuum that followed this secularization of Greek society was filled in with the Jesus cult and other Christian superstitions. Indian bishops are perpetrating the same apostolic fraud on Hindu society today when they claim that the pre-Christian Tamil weaver saint Tiruvalluvar was a disciple of the legendary St. Thomas! They add to their cultural crime by appropriating his “secular” ethical treatise Tirukkural as their own and declaring it a sectarian Christian book.

[JE Menon]

To understand what happened to the Greeks, it is worthwhile to read the book "The Passion of the Greeks: Christianity and the Rape of the Hellenes"...

http://www.amazon.com/Passion-Greeks-Ch ... 1593860390

A bit polemical, but well researched... and well, typical of the Greeks, passionately argued.

And this is a fairly useful resource:

http://hellenismos.us/f/YaBB.pl

[vishvak]

I think the Aryan Invasion Theory was a necessity, not a choice. It is the only way in which those who were destroyed were used post-mortem to destroy other pagans. There was no record then, and the theory is finished now, but in between the barbarians did their routines in the name of human rights and feigned civility to go after other pagans.

In absence of such Invasion theories, people could have asked 'where are the pagans, their kings and lifestyle and if pagans were not so barbaric who destroyed them? where is the literature that talks of invasion theories' in pagan literature?

The question still stands and the barbarians are left nakid; other theories by 'acedemics' may be on the way. Science and nature are though very indifferent to civilized and barbarians in all respects.

(deleted unrelated quote)

[JE Menon]

Not sure why you quoted my post vishvak, but just want to point out that the book has nothing to do with AIT. Noting that just in case others think so, based on your post.

[ramana]

Book Review:

Edward De Bono, "Why So Stupid?: How the Human Race Has Never Really Learned to Think"
| 2006 | ISBN: 1842180983 | 200 pages |

In Why So Stupid? How the Human Race has Never Really Learned to Think, Dr Edward de Bono acknowledges the excellence of the thinking system provided by the Renaissance but maintains that it is not enough. He says that we have become too complacent with a system that is dangerously inadequate in some areas. That this system is so enshrined in society will make change more difficult - but more necessary. Dr de Bono outlines new thinking methods. He challenges us to open our minds to the potential of these methods and provides concrete examples of the remarkable results they achieve in practice.

The good doc is not correct. Renaissance was due to Hellenism reviving itself after going underground in the Dark Ages under the Catholic Church whose hold was shaken by the Black Death and the vast de-population. And so called Enlightenment is a regurgitation of the percepts learned with the encounter with Asia and Native Americans in the colonial period. So if the West is at a hoatus it is because it faces the monolith and needs to create a new paradigm.

[ramana]

Book Review:

Peter Heather - The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (December 1, 2005) | Language: English | ISBN-10: 0195159543 | 608 pages |

The death of the Roman Empire is one of the perennial mysteries of world history. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Peter Heather proposes a stunning new solution: Rome generated its own nemesis. Centuries of imperialism turned the neighbors it called barbarians into an enemy capable of dismantling the Empire that had dominated their lives for so long. Heather is a leading authority on the late Roman Empire and on the barbarians. In The Fall of the Roman Empire, he explores the extraordinary success story that was the Roman Empire and uses a new understanding of its continued strength and enduring limitations to show how Europe's barbarians, transformed by centuries of contact with Rome on every possible level, eventually pulled it apart. He shows first how the Huns overturned the existing strategic balance of power on Rome's European frontiers, to force the Goths and others to seek refuge inside the Empire. This prompted two generations of struggle, during which new barbarian coalitions, formed in response to Roman hostility, brought the Roman west to its knees. The Goths first destroyed a Roman army at the battle of Hadrianople in 378, and went on to sack Rome in 410. The Vandals spread devastation in Gaul and Spain, before conquering North Africa, the breadbasket of the Western Empire, in 439. We then meet Attila the Hun, whose reign of terror swept from Constantinople to Paris, but whose death in 453 ironically precipitated a final desperate phase of Roman collapse culminating in the Vandals' defeat of the massive Byzantine Armada: the west's last chance for survival.

Globalization is the new Imperium which has compressed time from centuries to decades.
The PRC are the new Huns
The Vandals and Goths are the financial whiz kids.

Fall of Pound is the new Hadrianople
2008 Meltdown is the sack of Wall Street.

How will this history repeat as farce?

[ramana]

The Pirates' Pact: The Secret Alliances Between History's Most Notorious Buccaneers and Colonial America
Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press; 1 edition (September 10, 2008) | Language: English | ISBN-10: 0071474765 | | 288 pages |

Here's the story of how almost every well-known buccaneer of the “Golden Age of Piracy” enjoyed active sponsorship from England's governors in the American colonies- setting a pattern of official disobedience to the Crown that would ultimately contribute to the American push for independence. Relying on rare primary sources discovered in government archives in England, the Carolinas, Rhode Island, Jamaica, and elsewhere, Burgess combines true tales of derring-do with groundbreaking research in this fascinating history.

[AkshayM]

Part of the English pirate expeditions was response of the crown to spain expanding and enriching through south american conquest. Initial Caribbean settling was part piracy. The english then realized with more power and boots they could expand and colonize. All according to Niall Ferguson's decline of british empire.

[Bharath.Subramanyam]

Sandy Gordon seems to be one of the very few whites who understand India. I read his book on India. Very well written. Now he is writing about jathi in present day India.

I usually find that he doesn't look at India using 'Euro-Centrism' or 'Western framework'

(Caste in modern India June 29, 2011)
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/blogs/sou ... ern-india/


http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/blogs/sou ... ern-india/

[ramana]

Raoul McLaughlin, "Rome and the Distant East: Trade Routes to the ancient lands of Arabia, India and China"
Publisher: Continuum | ISBN 10: 1847252354 | 2010 | 256 pages |

This book studies the complex system of trade exchanges and commerce that profoundly changed Roman society. In ancient times there were several major trade routes that connected the Roman Empire to exotic lands in the distant East. Ancient sources reveal that after the Augustan conquest of Egypt, valued commodities from India, Arabia and China became increasingly available to Roman society. These sources describe how Roman traders went far beyond the frontiers of their Empire, travelling on overland journeys and maritime voyages to acquire the silk, spices and aromatics of the remote East.Records from ancient China, early India and a range of significant archaeological discoveries provide further evidence for these commercial contacts. Truly global in its scope, this study is the first comprehensive enquiry into the extent of this trade and its wider significance to the Roman world. It investigates the origins and development of Roman trade voyages across the Indian Ocean, considers the role of distant diplomacy and studies the organization of the overland trade networks that crossed the inner deserts of Arabia through the Incense Routes between the Yemeni Coast and ancient Palestine. It also considers the Silk Road that extended from Roman Syria across Iraq, through the Persian Empire into inner Asia and, ultimately, China.

[ramana]

If you look at the history of Western female costume, modern Western designs are mere adaptations of ancient Egyptian figures painted on the pyramid walls with variations of the Greek efforts.

[devesh]

http://2ndlook.wordpress.com/2008/02/07 ... -the-west/

Country Model Of The West

The Anglo-Saxon Country Business Model

These Turkish and Chinese failures down the western garden path is to mistake the trees for the forest. There are five major features of the Anglo-Saxon country model which these countries did not copy. Not that I am recommending that they be copied.

The Use Of Corporations

The use of the British East India Company was an eye opener for the rest of the West. After Vasco da Gama’s discovery of trade route to India (for Europeans) round Africa, the British were the first of the block – with the English East India Company formed in the 1600.

The Dutch started soon after with the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Co.) in 1602. The Danish Opperhoved initially started in 1616 and was reborn in 1732, as Asiatisk Kompagni. The Portuguese organised themselves as chartered company in 1628. The French came with the French East India Co. in 1664. The Swedes joined the rat race in 1731 with Svenska Ostindiska Companiet. The Italians came in as the Genoa East India companies. The Hanseatic League had its own operations.

In North America, the Hudson Bay Company (Compagnie de la Baie d’Hudson in French) was given a Royal Charter in 1670 by Charles II. It practically owned Canada when the Dominion of Canada was formed – and is the oldest surviving company in North America. It monopoly ended only in 1870 – a few years after the Indian Independence War of 1857.

Anglo-American Oil Company (subsidiary of Standard Oil) of Iran plotted the the assassination of Iran’s Prime Minister Haj Ali Razmara and the overthrow of the Mohammed Mossadegh regime. Thereafter, it was the puppet regime of Shah Of Iran which terrorised Iran for 30 years that paved the way for return of Ayatollah Khomeini – and Iran’s regression to medieval times. And who was leading this campaign – Kermit Roosevelt (Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson).

The Cornering Of Gold Supplies

For the last 150 years, the ABC countries (America, Australia, Britain, Canada) comprising the Anglo-Saxon bloc (countries, colonies and companies) have controlled 90% of the world’s gold production. Till (a large part of) India was a British Colony, they also controlled more than 50% of the above-the-ground gold reserves. This gave them absolute liberty to print depreciating currency and flood the world pieces of paper(called dollars and pounds), manipulate the world financial system and keep other populations poor and backward.

The Alternate Model

Bharat-tantra, the Indic political system that depends on local justice, low-policing, non-state free-coinage /gold-as-currency, absence of religion, property rights for all, low-tax systems, free-labour (as opposed to slave labour), enterprise instead of employment, wealth-and-property distribution instead of concentration, is the model that has a future – and a record of past success.

India, where non-State reform has played a very major role in crime, policing (JP’s dacoit reform), land reform (Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan movement), political change (JP’s Sampoorna Kranti movement). After the economic buffer from Bombay High oil discovery in 1974, the Indian State has certainly, steadily shed various aspects of its colonial legacy. More importantly, India did not go through the slavery-colonialism-capitalism route at all.

Anuraag Sanghi is good a debunking Western propagandu. his blog: 2ndlook.wordpress.com is very good reading material.

[devesh]

http://www.asatru.org/aboutasatru.php

Why do we need Asatru?
Aren't most people who want religion satisfied with Christianity or one of the other "Established" religions?
People are attracted to the better-known religions because they have genuine spiritual needs which must be filled. People are looking for community and for answers to the "big questions": What life is all about, and how we should live it. For many people today, the so-called major faiths do not have answers that work. Asatru has answers, but it has not been an alternative for most seekers because they haven't known about it. Once they realize that there is another way - a better, more natural, more honorable way - they will not be satisfied with anything less than a return to the religion of their ancestors.

Why is the Religion of our Ancestors the Best One for Us?
Because we are more like our ancestors than we are like anyone else. We inherited not only their general physical appearance, but also their predominant mental, emotional, and spiritual traits. We think and feel more like they did; our basic needs are most like theirs. The religion which best expressed their innermost nature - Asatru - is better suited to us than is some other creed which started in the Middle East among people who are essentially different from us. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are alien religions which do not truly speak to our souls.

Why Did Asatru Die Out if it was the Right Religion for Europeans?
Asatru was subjected to a violent campaign of repression over a period of hundreds of years. Countless thousands of people were murdered, maimed, and exiled in the process. The common people (your ancestors!) did not give up their cherished beliefs easily. Eventually, the monolithic organization of the Christian church, bolstered by threats of economic isolation and assisted by an energetic propaganda campaign, triumphed over the valiant but unsophisticated tribes.

Or so it seemed! Despite this persecution, elements of Asatru continued down to our own times - often in the guise of folklore - proving that our own native religion appeals to our innermost beings in a fundamental way. Now, a thousand years after its supposed demise, it is alive and growing. Indeed, so long as there are men and women of European descent, it cannot really die because it springs form the soul of our people. Asatru isn't just what we BELIEVE, it's what we ARE.

Wasn't the Acceptance of Christianity a Sign of Civilization - A Step up From Barbarism?
No! The atrocities committed by Christians, Muslims, and Jews throughout history are hardly a step up from anything. The so-called "barbarians" who followed Asatru (the Vikings, the various Germanic tribes, and so forth) were the source of our finest civilized traditions - trial by jury, parliaments, Anglo Saxon common law, and the rights of women, to name a few. Our very word "law" comes from the Norse language, not from the tongues of the Christian lands. We simply did not and do not need Christianity to be civilized.

How Does Asatru Differ From Other Religions?
Asatru is unlike the better-known religions in many ways. Some of these are:

We are polytheistic. That is, we believe in a number of deities, including Goddesses as well as Gods. We do not accept the idea of "original sin", the notion that we are tainted from birth and intrinsically bad, as does Christianity. Thus, we do not need "saving".

The Middle Eastern religions teach either a hatred of other religions or a duty to convert others, often by force. They have often practiced these beliefs with cruel brutality.

We do not claim to be a universal religion or a faith for all of humankind. In fact, we don't think such a thing is possible or desirable. The different branches of humanity have different ways of looking at the world, each of which is valid for them. It is only right that they have different religions, which of course they do.

the heart warms seeing the Europeans exploring their roots. may the process speed up and spread wider and deeper into European society....

didn't know where else to post this. although, the thoughts are coming for West, the thinking is fundamentally different from Abrahamic dominated thinking of the West, so posted it here.

[ramana]

To understand what happened to the Greeks, it is worthwhile to read the book "The Passion of the Greeks: Christianity and the Rape of the Hellenes"...

http://www.amazon.com/Passion-Greeks-Ch ... 1593860390

A bit polemical, but well researched... and well, typical of the Greeks, passionately argued.

And this is a fairly useful resource:

http://hellenismos.us/f/YaBB.pl

The Passion of the Greeks: Christianity and the Rape of the Hellenes,

Mediterranean Quarterly, 19:1 (Winter 2008): 97-106.

Book Review

Evaggelos G. Vallianatos, The Passion of the Greeks: Christianity and the Rape of the Hellenes, (Harwich Port, Cape Cod: Clock & Rose Press, 2006), Hardcover, 245 pp. ISBN: 978-1-59386-039-4

Reviewed by Christos C. Evangeliou.

This book was a pleasant surprise for me. Its title, The Passion of the Greeks, reminded me of a statement I had made in the Hellenic Philosophy, published ten years ago.[1]I had stated then that: “By the Hellenic definition of philosophia, understood as a free inquiry and unfettered speculation about both nature and culture, “European philosophy” becomes simply a case of homonymia. For this kind of “philosophy” has been deprived, for historical reasons, of that essential freedom of spirit, which is absolutely necessary for an authentic and genuine philosophy to be born and flourish…. [It] had the misfortune to serve, alternatively or simultaneously, three very non-Hellenic musters: dogmatic theology, scientific technology, and political ideology. Hence, what I have termed “the passion of philosophy,” which the forthcoming volume will attempt to bring to light, by critically analyzing the phenomenon of the historical transformation of Ancient Hellenic philosophy in Christianized Europe and the West.”

So, while I was still trying to figure out the details of “the passion of philosophy,” that is, what happened to Hellenic philosophy in Christian Europe, Vallianatos’ book came to address such larger questions as: “What happened to the Greeks? When did the Greek Gods become “myths” and their people, the most highly evolved in the Mediterranean “pagans”? Why are their statues mutilated and their temples smashed? Why was so much of their knowledge destroyed? This book tells the secret story of the Greek genocide at the hands of the Christians between the fourth to the sixth centuries CE... At a time of religious conflict between Christianity and Islam, this book highlights the intolerant nature of monotheism, the hidden history that plunged the West into the Dark Ages. This book is pleading for another Renaissance, another love affair with the Greeks, so as to reinvigorate our civilization with Greek values.”

Written with great passion, by a passionate Greek scholar, this impassioned book recounts with graphic details the historical “passion” of the pagan Greeks at the crucial time, when they encountered the fanatic hordes of missionary monks and Christianizing Roman Emperors. They tried to convert the remaining Greeks too to the new, fanatical, and fashionable faith at the time, willy-nilly. This book is unlike other books, which present the Christianizing of Greece and of the Mediterranean region as some kind of felicitous meeting and mating of the philosophic spirit of Hellenism and the prophetic spirit of the new and ecumenical religion of love and peace. For it chronicles, with boldness and candor, the other and more hideous side of this tragic story. The meeting of Christianity and Hellenism was not peaceful and pious, in the eyes of the author, but bloody and brutal, and has been kept secret and hidden for a long time.

This challenging and truthful tale, therefore, will probably offend the sensibilities of Christians and Greeks, who have been taught the other aspect of the story for so long that they have come to believe it with fanatic faith. They even feel proud of what they refer to, with equal passion, as the great and glorious synthesis of the Greco-Christian heritage, historically facing the menace of Islam. For, as Prof. Thanasis Maskaleris has put it: “[The] book dramatically portrays the immense conflict between Christianity and Hellenism from its beginnings to the present, and is structured with a backbone of extensive documentation. It also estimates our great loss for essentially abandoning the political and humanistic principles the Greeks shaped for a civilized sustenance of our world. One wishes that more books were written in the same vein, for the wisdom of the Greeks can provide the guidance we desperately need…”

More praise for this good book comes from distinguished Professors, like Apostolos Athanassakis and Phillip Mitsis. They have stated respectively that: “The Passion of the Greeks is a book which proposes to sail into the highly controversial early centuries when the Christian faith made every possible effort to prevail over the deeply-embedded Hellenic religion…. However, violence, political conspiracy, and downright destruction of the great religious centers of antiquity were much more the order of the day….” And, “His plea for reason, moderation, liberty, and a general world view that he finds best defended in the traditions of Hellenic philosophical thought is especially timely in a world increasingly disturbed by religious fanaticism and sectarian violence. Rather than giving into despair, however, Vallianatos tries to chart an optimistic map of human and political possibilities and calls for a general renewal of individual and societal reason based on modern pagan principles.”

The book deserves all this praise and more because it is written not only with great pathos, but also with clarity of thought and lucidity of style. What he said about Zosimos, one of his favorite Greek historians, applies to Vallianatos work as well: “He wrote in the great Greek historical tradition—of honesty, conciseness, insight, originality and moving narrative.” (p. 87) The book combines historical erudition with a personal touch, as the author tries to understand what happened to his beloved Hellenes and to him personally. His journey took him from a war ravished Greek island, Kephalonia, to America, where he discovered himself and his Hellenic roots through the study of history, with help from Adamantios Koraes, an enlightened and inspired Greek scholar on whom he wrote his doctoral dissertation.

Life in Valsamata, the village where Evaggelos was born and raised, in the post war Greece which was also torn apart by civil war, was tough and determined by the interplay of shadows. On the one hand were the shadows cast by mountain Ainos, with the ruins of the shrines of Zeus, Apollon, Athena, and Pan; and on the other, the shades coming from the monastery of St. Gerasimos, with its Church bells, festivals and icons. He explains in the prologue of the book the conflict within this tradition and in his inner soul:

The ideal of what Greece was in “ancient” times and the ideal of what it should be in my time clash violently with what Greece is, in fact, in the dawn of the twenty-first century. I love passionately all that is still Greek in Greece. I say this with sorrow, for Christianity radically remade Greece to the point that the real Hellas was buried for more than a millennium, indeed it is still buried, in the country, which calls itself Hellas or Greece…. The Christians made the whole country a cemetery, which quite unintentionally preserved the aftermath of their plunder and genocide of the Greeks and Hellenic civilization…. The products of Christian culture—the bible, the liturgy, the miracles of Jesus and the saints, the dogmas of sin, paradise and hell, the icons of the religious hierarchy—come from a world that has nothing to do with the Parthenon and the philosophy and piety of the Greeks, who built this greatest masterpiece of Greek and Western culture in order to honor the Greek virgin goddess Athena. (pp. 4-10)

Between the long prologue (pp. 1-26) and a short epilogue (pp. 201-207), the author has arranged
eleven chapters that make up the bulk of the book and house his passionate narrative of the passion of the Greeks. He chronicles the tragic transformation of the Hellenic and Greco-Roman civilization in the crucial time o f the 4th and 6th centuries. As he sees it, this civilization (rational, beautiful, good and humanistic) was replaced, for the most part violently, by the monstrosity of a theocratic Christian Empire, which was based on a fanatical and intolerant faith, with its foolish hopes and irrational fears of an after life.

Chapter one, “Greek History: From Marathon to Korinthos,” covers the historical period falling between the glorious battle of Marathon, which marked the first Greek victory over the Persians in 490BC, and the infamous battle of Corinth in 146BC, which the Greeks lost to Romans. It made mainland Greece a province of the expanding Roman Empire. Of special interest here is the theory regarding the relation between Hellenic historia (history) and mythologia (mythology), or “early history.” The author explains, “God Prometheus comes to us out of what we call “mythology”. Greek mythology, however, is not a fairy tale or a legend—this is a pernicious lie the Christians invented to denigrate the Greeks. Mythology, for the Greeks, is early history or history lost in time, and it is the fundamental key to understanding the world, how it works, and where we humans fit in.” (p. 29) In support of this theory he refers also to the work of an expert in the field of Classical Greek Studies, Dr. Mary Lefkowitz.[2]

Chapter two, “Power and Importance of Greek Religion,” builds upon and elaborates this theory. It addresses the important questions of how the Greeks and their gods are literally inseparable, and “why religion, in the form of piety for the gods expressed in athletics, the tragic theater, the oracles, and the festivals, helped the Greeks to maintain their Greek identity?” He insists that, “Greek piety, the veneration of the Greeks for their gods, was at the core of how the Greeks understood the universe, nature, the rest of the world, and themselves. In fact the religion of the Greek people was their culture, which was full of gods but did not have a creed, holy book or church…. All agricultural festivals were propitiation to the gods for increasing the fertility of the land, for a good harvest.” (p. 42) He concludes with the insightful observation: “So the Greeks started their grand political experimentation in the gymnasion-palaistra of each polis with a combination of training the beautiful nude body of young people with rigorous physical exercises, and educating their mind with a command of the Greek language, music, philosophy, mathematics and science. The nude athletic games of Olympia…. were a sort of final exams, an offering of piety to the gods, all in one political act and celebration of common Greek culture.”(p. 48)

In chapter three, “Apollonios of Tyana: Hellas is the World,” he discusses the special case of the sage Apollonios of Tyana, his travels all over the world, his many exploits, as well as the rivalry between his Hellenic movement and the early Christian cult. In him, the author sees an archetype with which he can identify. For, like Evaggelos, “He passionately tried to preserve Hellenic culture by choosing its ascetic and scientific version worked out by Pythagoras 700 years before his time… He urged the Greeks and Romans to stand by their traditions, studying nature and medicine, offering piety to their gods….Christianity did to Apollonios what it did to Greek culture—it obliterated his works and influence…. Apollonios, however, made a difference among the Greeks, offering a model of inspiration and resistance to them, which they used to preserve and protect their culture for many hundreds of years.” (pp. 59-60)

Chapter four, “The Treason of Christianity,” is one of the longest and most passionate. It narrates the failure of the Roman State to deal effectively with the serious danger that the rapidly growing, the “insidious and seditious,” Christian sect represented, although the authorities were aware of its devious, anti-social behavior. One Roman Emperor after another underestimated the threat of Christianity, until it was too late to stop it in the 4th century, when they embrace it and used it for their interests. Of course, “What happened to Rome eventually reached Greece: Tremors in Rome became earthquakes in Greece. [But] it took time for the cultist tremor of Christianity to become a political and cultural earthquake.”(p. 62)

Several pages of this chapter are devoted to Celsus or Kelsos’ sustained attack of the new religion, as well as the reactions to it of leading Platonic philosophers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries BCE, such as, Ploutarchos, Plotinos, and Porphyrios. According to Kelsos, “Christianity had nothing original or divine in its history and theology. It was a stolen piece of Judaism modified to fit the fiction of Jesus. This was a Jewish sorcerer whom the Jews rejected because he claimed to be their messiah. The Jews, however, expected a messiah-prince to free them of Roman rule, but Jesus had nothing to do with princes or revolution. The Christians, nevertheless, made Jesus, a secretive, untrustworthy sorcerer, into a god. …Christian teachers sought their converts among slaves, women, children and fools. This was no accident but a consistent policy because they feared educated people. They considered science and learning dangerous and evil, and thought of knowledge as a disease of the soul.” (p. 68) All these conclusions the author derives from Origenes’ response to Kelsos’ attack of the Christian Church. In the eyes of Hellenic philosophers and Roman authorities, the Christians appeared as “atheists and impious and criminal.” This is attested by Christian Eusebius, among other authors, in Preparatio Evangelica (1.2. 1-4).

The 3rd and 4th centuries were certainly stressed times intensified by ideological war between the new Christian thinkers, like Eusebius and Augustine, and traditional thinkers, like Plotinus and Porphyry. Porphyry in particular became the champion of Hellenism and Hellenic polytheism, so that he attracted the ire of the theologians. In this, the author sees a parallel to the recently ended Cold War pitting Communists against Capitalists: “This war was as nasty a war—fought between the Greeks and the Christians—as that fought in the twentieth century between the Communist Russians and the Americans. Eusebios and Augustine played the role of the hagiographers of Lenin and Stalin. No crime made any difference as long as the hero was on the side of Christianity…. After all, they spent their entire lives trying to show the Jewish prophecies and the gospels were not fiction but the word of god…. Yet the slander of Porphyrios by Eusebios and Augustine did not diminish his timely and all-important message.” (pp. 79-80) The Emperor Maximinus Daia (308-313) was probably influenced by Porphyry and picked up the message and the struggle against the enemies of the state, but it was too little, too late. Constantine had other plans in mind.

Chapter five is titled, “Decline and Fall of Rome--Through Greek Eyes.” The author wants to look at the decline and fall of Rome through the eyes of two Greek historians, Zosimos and Ammianus, because: “To uncover what the Christians did to the Greeks, we need to turn to the Greeks themselves—that is, we must understand Roman imperial history from the perspective of the Greeks who witnessed the smashing and burning of their culture. That is the only way to get to the truth. The Christians… whether historians, philologists, translators, editors or theologians writing in the last several centuries, including the twentieth century, are unreliable: They no longer see the Greeks as Greeks but see them as idolaters, heathens and pagans…. That is the main reason we must consult the Greeks in order to reveal the truth.” (p. 87)

When we do consult the Greek historian Zosimos, we see that he identified the period 313-363 as the crucial time of Roman decline. Two related factors, Christianity and barbarity, combined to bring down Roman power. For the Barbarians “infiltrated the Roman world, and together with the Christians, barbarized it. Finally, the barbarians and the Christians became indistinguishable, destroying the integrity, and indeed the civilization, that had been Roman Empire.” (p. 88). This certainly happened in the western part of the Empire, but the eastern part seems to have faired a little better, perhaps in the eyes of other observers, but not in the eyes of the author of this book. For him, as for Zosimos, the emperors Constantine and Theodosius I, do not deserve the title “Great,” that Christians historians have bestowed on them, because they share “most of the blame for the catastrophe,” the collapse of the Empire. More to the point:
Zosimos disliked Constantine primarily because, by his support of Christianity, he broke irrevocably with both Greek and Roman past. Zosimos was right…. Constantine inflicted a nearly mortal wound on the civilization of Rome. He was the first Roman emperor who, by his actions, became no longer the chief magistrate of the Roman people, but a despot armed with troops and his own state religion, Christianity. He wrecked the ancient Roman tradition that the emperor, the princeps, was the legal representative of the senate and the Roman people. Instead, Constantine founded a hereditary monarchy and used religion to draw moral and political support. This, in my opinion, is the overarching reason why Constantine made Christianity a state religion…. Christianity would forever bless him and justify his rule.” (p. 93)

These insights are right on target. Christianity was ready to forgive Constantine’s many hideous
crimes, and even elevate him to the level of the Apostle, calling him isapostolos. Ammianus was equally “disturbed by the violence of the Christians,” in the rein of Constantius, son of Constantine. (p. 99)

Chapter six is titled, “Julian the Great,” not surprisingly, since Julian was the champion of the “pagan” party and, in this regard, the opposite of Constantine and his pro-Christian policies. His rise to power, his short rule, and his tragic fall (362-363) are described in detail following Ammianus’ account. Julian was determined to restore the worship of the gods and the honored Greco-Roman traditions. Thus, he “declared religious freedom in the empire,” although he made it public that he was not a Christian, “but a faithful follower of the Greek and Roman gods.” He “immersed himself in Greek religion with the passion of a person who waited an entire life for that moment;” he “loved Greek philosophy and the gods, for the two were inseparable.” He made a distinction between Christianity and Judaism and showed more respect for the latter. He also considered rebuilding “the sacred city of Jerusalem.” But he always saw Christianity as “an illegal, treasonous and newfangled cult and ideology that destroyed Greek culture.” (pp. 106-112)

He even prohibited, rightly in the opinion of the author, Christians “from teaching Greek and Roman philosophy, poetry and literature.” These were replete with references to Greek religion and reverence for the gods. How could Christians appreciate their beauty, understand their truth, and interpret it correctly? Gregory of Nazianzus, who had met Julian as a student in Athens, called him “a public and private enemy” and an “apostate,” an epithet that stack with him since. To counterbalance this, Vallianatos calls Julian “ the Great” and a “Philosopher-King.” If it was not obvious that he loves Julian, the author tells us so (p.119). Because of this love, he admits that his portrait of this tragic Emperor is “probably more one-sided than I would like it to be.” However, at this point, he is critical of Dr. Polymnia Athanassiadi who, following the line of St. Gregory, sees in Julian a fanatic man and “the very incarnation of evil.”[3]

Clearly the author identifies with Julian and his project: “He, no more than I, had no choice in growing up Christian. We dumped Christianity because it had been imposed on us by the force of the church and the government in his case, and by the force of unexamined tradition in my case. In addition, and this is the real reason of abandoning Christianity, that religion had nothing to do with our Greek culture. In fact, it turned out to be a fatal enemy to that culture. The apostates were the likes of Gregory Nazianzus who willfully ditched their fabulous and philosophical Greek tradition for an alien and treasonous doctrine.” (p. 119) With the assassination of young Julian (in 363, at the age of 32), and the intensified barbarian attacks on Rome, the Empire seemed as if abandoned by the gods, and doomed to follow “its Christian path of violent decline and fall.” This decline is covered in chapters seven and eight


Of special interest is chapter eight, “Universal Captivity of Greece,” because it provides what the author calls “chronology of murder and genocide,” a long list of dates in which policies directed against the pagan Greeks were adopted by Christian Roman Emperors. Worship of the Hellenic gods and sacrificing to them were forbidden on the penalty of death. The Eleusinian Mysteries and the Olympic Agones were ended. Teachers were forbidden to engage in Greek studies. An edict of Zeno, published in 484, reads thus: “Bishops and government agents should find and punish teachers of Hellenic studies. They should not be allowed to teach, lest they corrupt their students. But, above all, Bishops and government officials should put Greek teachers out of business, bringing the “impieties” of Hellenism to an end. No one shall leave a gift or bequeath anything to Greeks or to schools and other institutions supporting the “impiety” of Hellenism. All previous legislation against the “error” of the Greeks is reaffirmed.” (p. 139)

Dr. Vallianatos comments on the imperial order that brought an end to the Olympics, as follows:

Here was a millennial tradition of athletic competition for arete (courage, virtue, equality before the law, goodness, manliness, nobility and excellence) started by Herakles, son of Zeus and the Greeks’ greatest hero, and Theodosios, thinking like a barbarian, brought it to an end.

The Olympic agon (contest) was much more than a struggle between outstanding men for physical excellence. It was, above all, a Panhellenic honoring of the gods. It was an extraordinary effort to rein in the Hellenes’ passions for war and bring them together from all over the world for the celebration of their common culture. The overwhelming idea behind the Olympic contest was political. The Olympic contest was an effort to build a Panhellenic polis and commonwealth, a united Hellas under democratic governance. The Olympic agon was also building better and nobler human beings. And, yet, the Hellenes’ greatest athletic contest and celebration of national identity were buried…. by a barbarian king who knew no better than listening to the fanaticism of his Christian advisors. (p. 136)

The destructive work of Theodosius against the Greeks and their culture continued by his successors and, with real zest, by Justinian, who closed down the schools of philosophy in Athens in 529, and “brought barbarism to Greece.” According to John of Ephesus, “in 546 Justinian’s agents discovered several illustrious and noble men, grammarians, sophists, and doctors, who were worshiping the Greek gods. The government of Justinian tortured, beat, flogged and imprisoned these men who then rushed to denounce each other. Some of them admitted their “false beliefs” and became Christians. One of these rich and powerful men, Phokas, committed suicide in prison rather than face Justinian who ordered that he “be buried like a donkey.” (p. 148) Together with the pagan Greeks, the Jews were targeted too. For instance, St. John Chysostom considered them, long before Hitler, as a “disease that had to be eradicated.” (p. 154)

Chapter nine is titled, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” The question has been borrowed from Tertullian, a Christian fundamentalist and bigot, who represented an extreme version of Christianity. He expressed deep suspicion and hatred of Hellenic philosophy, which he considered the seedbed of heresy. For him, and many other Christians like him, the truth had been revealed and was to be found in the Holy Scriptures, whose origin was in Jerusalem, and not to be sought by philosophers and their theories, whose origin was in Athens, Greece. At any rate, the fact is that, although the Christianized Roman Empire retained in its eastern parts at least the Greek language and some morsels of classical literature, this was just the cell of the Hellenic culture, without the soul or vital spirit. The spirit was lost and would not be revived in the West for more than a millennium, until the coming of Renaissance in the 14-15th centuries.

But, before the Italian Renaissance, another renaissance had taken place in the Islamic world in the 9th and 10th centuries, especially in Baghdad under the Abbassid dynasty. This was primarily due to the fact that many books of Greek philosophy and science were translated into Arabic in a systematic way. The two captures of Constantinople (by the Crusaders in 1204, and the Turks in 1453) brought to the West valuable Greek manuscripts and competent Greek scholars, who gave an impetus to the Renaissance. But the light of Renaissance was soon to be dimmed by the fury of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic reaction. Thus, the Council of Trent (1545-1563) brought effectively the Renaissance movement to a premature end. The author correctly observes that, “As a result, the religious wars in the sixteenth century, among many other catastrophes, nearly sealed the fate of Hellenic logos (reason) in European culture…. Calvinism brought an end of pleasure, the agonizing fear of sin, and hatred for nature and the earth to the Evangelical Christians. Calvin said Christians longed for death, not life. Calvin was right about that.” (p. 169)

However, the movements of Renaissance and Reformation left Greece and its Orthodox Church unmoved, as they were covered protectively with the darkness of Turkocracy (1453-1821). To this theme the next chapter (chapter ten) is devoted and is titled, with caustic irony, “The Greek Palimpsest.” The comments, in this chapter particularly, about the Greek Church will make religiously minded people in Greece upset, and not eager to extend their Christian love to the author of this book. Consider for example:

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, Christianity is still a force to contend with in Greece. The church is an occupying and colonial and colonizing force. The church in Greece is the highest of all conceivable corruption. It stole the identity of the Greeks and continues to muddle their minds with anti-Hellenic thoughts. The church is also the wealthiest institution of the country. It has made religion into an extraordinary profitable business…. What Christians did to the Hellenes and their culture…. is a closed and secret page of Greek history in Greece…. Most Greeks don’t know that their church collaborated with the Turks to keep them slaves for 400 years. Adamantios Koraes was straightforward. Writing anonymously in 1806, he said the priests and monks and bishops were primarily responsible for the Turkish occupation of Greece…. The country is a Palimpsest. Barbarians are writing over the scraped history and culture of Hellas…. Greek children and students sing the praises of Christian saints, some of them with abominable records of anti-Hellenism, but barely know the poetry, or even the names of, Homeros, Hesiodos, Aischylos, Sophocles…. (pp. 171-172)

In spite of this bleak picture of the status of Greek culture in Greece, in Europe, and the world, he is optimistic that a possible renaissance by the resurrection of Hellenic gods, especially agrarian Dionysus, to replace Christian Jesus, is not out of the question completely. To this possibility the last chapter of the book is devoted, “Dionysos for a Permanent Hellenic Renaissance.” Following on the steps of Nietzsche, he sees the difference between a Greek god and other gods: “A god to a Greek is not what Christians (and other monotheists) understand their god to be. The Greek god was sometimes an immortal being of pure goodness, intelligence, beauty, and power; but, more often, the Greek god was a mixture of human and divine elements, a human-like god or god-like human with immortality, goodness, power, beauty, and intelligence to spare—the very ideal of Greek philosophy and culture, kalon k’ agathon, the beautiful and the good.” (p. 187)

He also meditates on the relation between Greeks and Christians, and finds the combination of “Christian Greek” a kind of oxymoron. This will not please many Greeks and Greek-Americans who are proud of their Greek Orthodox Christianity. He always seems to return to the basic “anti-Hellenic impulse of Christianity” which, for him, constitutes the “Greek tragedy in Christian Greece.” This would make one wonder what a Jew would say about Christianity, which, in his eyes, took the concept of the one Jewish God, and turned it into a Trinity, using the tricks of Greek sophistry and some ideas of Hellenic philosophy. We know that Mohammed found this radical transformation of the “one true God” abominable and blasphemous. Hence the unbridgeable gap that separates these two sister religions and “faiths of Abraham.”

The author hopes earnestly that Hellenic logos and a revived Dionysus can help humanity to find its way back to reverence for nature and its gods. But, as the 9/11 and the war on terror indicate, Islam and Christianity are ready for another round in the cosmic arena for world dominion. It would be great if only fundamentalist Muslims and Christians could be persuaded to supplement the reading of the Holy Bible or the Holy Koran, with the reading of other good books like the book of Dr. Vallianatos! Then, there would be more hope for his dream to come true, a renaissance of Hellenic learning and culture. But that will take a true miracle. On the other hand, just as the Hellenes were turned into Christians, the Christian Greeks at least could be made to return to their Hellenic cultural roots with some good luck and in better times ahead.

Dr. Christos C. Evangeliou

Professor of Hellenic Philosophy and Poet

Towson University, USA

Author of several books, including

Hellenic Philosophy: Origin and Character.

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[1] Hellenic Philosophy: Between Europe, Asia and Africa, (Binghamton, NY: Binghamton University, 1997), p. iii

[2] “Greek Gods, Human Lives: What we can Learn from Myths” (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

[3] Julian: An Intellectual Biography (London: Routledge, 1992), especially, pages 32 and 227-229.