Beneath the Dust of Time

Book excerpt: Aims to explain the origin and meaning of the names of peoples (e.g. Greeks, Germans), countries (e.g. Spain), continents (Europe, Africa), seas (Baltic), mountains (Alps, Pyrenees), rivers (Nile, Rhine, Danube), and cities (Rome, Babylon). These names are generally extremely old, and many can be traced back to migrants who had fled from their desertifying homeland in North Africa and who spoke non-Indo-European languages such as Etruscan. Pauwels has written a book for the general public, but historians, geographers, and linguists will also benefit from reading it (...). [He] is a scholar who knows how to tell an intriguing story. Too few of his colleagues possess that talent.