The Dawn of Genius

Book excerpt: The modern world looks back towards Ancient Greece for the start of its philosophy, for the origins of its science and even for the foundations of its excursion into democracy. But is this either correct or fair? Was there something long, long before the City States of Greece flirted with geometry, astronomy and inclusive politics from which Greece itself developed, merely as a pale reflection? Alan Butler has put together his most exhaustive and yet most compelling presentation of how we came to be what we are today. The Dawn Genius explores the genius that was the Minoan civilization and shows how accounts of the fabled Atlantis were actually memories of a worldwide catastrophe that occurred around 1600 BC. The Dawn of Genius puts back into the place the missing pieces of the puzzle that is Europe prior to a massive watershed in population and culture that took place after 2000 BC. A cataclysmic volcanic eruption in the Eastern Mediterranean destroyed an almost totally forgotten infrastructure that encompassed an entire continent, and opened Europe to an unparalleled invasion of much less sophisticated people from the East. The book recreates the culture and religion and scientific knowledge that was shattered in an instant and which plunged the world into a dark age from which it has taken over 3,000 years to emerge. This is probably the most comprehensive explanation of mysteries from a truly ancient world that has ever been written. Those interested in exploring the genuine origins of the modern world are certain to be enthralled.