Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I couldn't agree more with the reviewer from Georgia who mentioned that this book is a great idea betrayed by an utter lack of thoroughness. Indeed, and without belaboring what has already been said in that review, this potentially valuable idea (for somebody else's book) is quite a frustrating read. And it does seem like more of an annotated bibliography than a real study of/comparison between competing notions of ideas about Akhenaten. While much of the information provided is interesting, there is basically no room for investigation, for follow-through, for earnest authorial postulation. Too, I found the book a lumpy piece of writing. For any American-educated scholar there seems to exist a wholly annoying and singular European mode of academc writing that would drive the MLA absolutely insane. Whereas parts of this book are utterly fascinating, such as the discussion of the aborted Akhenaten film script by the late Derek Jarman, such parts are touched upon ever so slightly . . . The idea of this book rates an A for me, but the combination of iffy execution and alarming brevity (and PRICE!) cause me to caution anyone, especially poor graduate students, from plunking down a veritable jackpot wad only to receive this disappointing scholarly effort.

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The pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled Egypt in the mid-fourteenth century BCE, has been the subject of more speculation than any other character in Egyptian history. Often called the originator of monotheism and the world's first recorded individual, he has fascinated and inspired both scholars of Egyptology and creative talents as diverse as Sigmund Freud and Philip Glass.This provocative biography examines both the real Akhenaten and the myths that have been created around him. It scrutinises the history of the pharaoh and his reign, which has been continually written in Eurocentric terms inapplicable to ancient Egypt, and the archaeology of Akhenaten's capital city, Amarna. It goes on to explore the pharaoh's extraordinary cultural afterlife, and the way he has been invoked to validate ideas as diverse as psychoanalysis, racial equality and fascism. Dr Montserrat makes the point that our view of Akhenaten has never been based purely on historical or archaeological knowledge, but is a cultural hallucination, influenced by western desires about ancient Egypt and modern struggles for legitimation and authority.Combining up-to-date historical synthesis with extensive new archival research, Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt is the first book to assess critically why the archaeology of ancient Egypt continues to fascinate. Theoretically astute and engagingly written, and illustrated with many striking images never previously published, it will appeal to anyone with an interest in Akhenaten or in the archaeology of ancient Egypt.

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