Age of the Great Goddess

Rating:
Summary: equal time
Review: The late Marija Gimbutas, Professor emeritus of Archaeology at UCLA, reveals the mystery of Europes prehistoric goddess culture. Here was a culture that knew no war, where art affirmed life, and all people prospered under an egalitarian system. Professor Gimbutas uncovers the rich world of this lost culture and its sacred heritage. Documenting her ideas with a lifetime of research and discovery.

Rating:
Summary: equal time
Review: The late Marija Gimbutas, Professor emeritus of Archaeology at UCLA, reveals the mystery of Europes prehistoric goddess culture. Here was a culture that knew no war, where art affirmed life, and all people prospered under an egalitarian system. Professor Gimbutas uncovers the rich world of this lost culture and its sacred heritage. Documenting her ideas with a lifetime of research and discovery.

Rating:
Summary: Very New age and emotionally gratifying, but...
Review: this book is a perfect example of what I refer to as "New Age Feel Good Revisionism." It takes certain well accepted historical and archeological findings and builds a misanthropic universe of "networking" advanced matiarchs subjugated by the foul, brutal and ignorant "imperialistic" patiarchs. There is enough soft evidence of the supression of female icons in favor of their male counterparts, to lend credence to Ms. Gimbutas's assumptions. The problem is that the author tries to parley this rather soft evidence into a matriachal "Atlantis". Perhaps the worst part of her argument is that she attepts to refute her critics with emotionally based diatribes instead of scientific arguments based on accepted methods of independent verification. Her claim that the mainstream can't bring themselves to discard their entrenched ideas because of a sort of masculine based machismo is nothing but the tired old act of distraction when the evidence doesn't fit. If the author is right...the burden of proof is on her...NOT the status quo. I am waiting to be convinced.