I've been very unhappy with the term "cultural appropriation," because it's been expanded beyond its original (debatable) point about wearing traditional dress of other cultures as a costume being insulting to the idea that all cultural borrowings are somehow wrong. A lot of this is because the foundation of Western identity is (almost) entirely cultural appropriation. Rome heavily pillaged the cultural legacy of Hellenism, and then converted to a Semitic religion. The legacy of Rome then bounded together the West, expanding even to areas like Scandinavia, Ireland, and much of Germany, which never even had direct Roman rule in the time of the empire. Indeed, the weaving together of the West was to a large extent beating down the individual cultural mythologies of the Norse, the Irish, and many others, replacing them first with bible stories, and then later with the renaissance, the "rediscovery" of classic Greco-Roman mythos, binding nations together rather than rooting each in the particular. All of it based on "appropriating" stories (and practices, etc.) which were not endemic to the area.
Of course, all cultures borrow from one another and change over time. But I think pointing out how the West, itself, is founded on cultural borrowings from the "non-west" tends to shut a lot of annoying people up on both sides.
In different ways, stolen land is a favourite concept of both Zionist propagandists and the postmodern nonsense left, and I would not think it the only way in which their thinking runs in similar grooves. Most land in England has been "stolen" many times over (the Normans, the Wars of the Roses, the dissolution of the monasteries), and yet there are villages where surnames recorded in fourteenth century taxation records predominate today.
Recently we have had loud campaigns for the return of objects from great museums to their countries of origin regardless of title. Where do we get the idea that cultural artifacts must be displayed where they were created? There is a pair of paintings called The Kongouro from New Holland and Portrait of a Large Dog, the earliest pictures of a kangaroo and a dingo based on specimens from Captain Cook's voyages, by George Stubbs, famous for his portraits of horses. An Australian bid $9m for them at auction and was refused an export licence by the Department of Culture and they were "saved for the nation". I always thought that Australia should have had them.
Very interesting article! The great transformation that led to Classical Greece and post-exile Judaism was part of the “Axial Age revolution” that was much broader than future Western realm. It was one of the fundamental global steps in humanity evolution, comparable to beginning of the Bronze Age and first states and the Industrial revolution. It extended to India and China and, what is often forgotten, Persia, that developed in fact, an early monotheistic (or dualistic) religion - Zoroastrianism. it had a fundamental influence on Babylonian Jews, so that post-exile Judaism was very different than pre exile. It actually had a big cultural influence on Greeks too, although today only wars between them are remembered.
Excellent, stimulating, and persuasive. I knew about Henrich, but not Rubin and Sheidel.
In his fascinating autobiography, "Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History" (2023), Peter Brown says this about his "The World of Late Antiquity" (1971):
It "would not be a story of decline and fall, followed by catastrophic barbarian invasion ... Rather, it would be a study of change and continuity in a deeply rooted and sophisticated society."
He can say this, over 50 years after he wrote "World," because that brilliant book focuses on the south and east of the ancient Mediterranean world, where, as you point out, civilizational collapse is less evident. (Although it is very evident, for example, in Asia Minor and Cyprus, where urban civilization seems to have ceased completely by the mid-seventh century. Brown is not an archaeologist).
In his more recent "The Rise of Western Christendom" (2nd ed. 2003), which, as the title shows, focuses on the West, Brown acknowledges the evidence of collapse, but tends to temper those acknowledgments with insistent claims such as that "a long and opulent Roman past still had a place in the present." Again, he is not an archaeologist.
In an illuminating passage, he remarks that his own deep interest in the ancient Near East stems from his Irish Protestant background, because "the Church of Ireland maintained an intensely biblical version of Protestantism" centered on reading the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New in Greek.
even the rise of western christendom had a fair amount of stuff on the east med. tho. just where so much of the action was...
i think perhaps ward-perkins type analyses overlook persistence of elite *romanitas* as a surface layer tho. but it's important to note that romanitas was much more thoro before the fall in the west...
The idea that ancient Jews and their religion are one of the bedrock pillars of modern Western civilization is a grandiose exaggeration in my opinion
Looking at the content of Judaism, you can see that Judaism is very clearly an exclusive ethno-religion that places one group (the Jews) as more important than everyone else in the world. The Jews in Babylon elaborated on this in their Talmud by writing that all humans have an animalistic soul, but only the Jews have a special divine soul on top -- the implication being that non-Jews do not have the same ability to act in an altruistic and genuinely moral way as Jews do. This is in extreme stark contrast to the universal nature of Christianity.
Furthermore, traditional Jewish religion places numerous regressive restrictions on Jews that simply don't exist in Christianity. This includes men not being allowed to listen to women singing, stoning adulterers, couples not being allowed to touch each other or give anything to each other while the wife is on her period, and countless arcane restrictions on eating and clothing.
Not to mention the fact that many scholars would consider the Hebrew Bible to be one of the most objectively violent (if not the most violent) texts among modern world religions. The Hebrew Bible includes multiple instances of Jews committing genocide on their neighbors, not even sparing animals and infants. This along with God himself committing genocide on humans at his own whim.
Thus, it is more accurate to say that the nature of western Christianity -- such as universal justice and equality and the idea of a democratic faith-based (rather than rules-based) salvation -- is despite its foundations in ancient Judaism, not because of it.
Finally, you ignore the elephant in the room being the unique social structure in western Europe throughout the medieval and early modern era that I believe play a larger role in shaping the West than ancient philosophies and religions. Namely, manorialism, which fostered cooperation between non-kin groups, and strict prohibitions on extended kin marriage molded Westerners into being uniquely cooperative toward non-kin groups and low in clannishness. One could argue that the reason the Enlightenment and the idea of universal morality took off in the West is because of these unique social structures. After all, the West was not the only society exposed to ancient Greek philosophy and Judaism.
"Namely, manorialism, which fostered cooperation between non-kin groups, and strict prohibitions on extended kin marriage molded Westerners into being uniquely cooperative toward non-kin groups and low in clannishness. "
i explicitly referenced heinrich. did you read the post?
second, the stuff about the talmud is irrelevant. once christianity emerged i don't think the jews had much influence. i was very precise with terms like hebrews, israelites and jews in this piece...
I stopped midway into my reading to write the response, so I missed the snippet on Heinrich. I apologize for that. But it would've been nice in an article on "How the West was wraught" to go more in detail into Heinrich's and others' theories on why the West is "WEIRD", as I believe that's more consequential.
You're right about the Talmud being technically irrelevant, but I brought it up as an example of the stark contrast between the ethos of Judaism (and more broadly the Hebrews'/Israelites' belief) and the ethos of western Christianity.
Anecdotally, African strains of Christianity place a lot more emphasis on the Old Testament than Western forms of Christianity usually do. I think that may be a good illustration of why the Hebrew Bible is not fundamental to the modern Western ethos.
If I am not mistaken, the ancient Hebrews bequeathed to Christianity, and hence to the West, the concept of History (with a capital H) along with our modern liberal ideals of political and economic freedom and social justice as the ultimate terminus of that History. You won't find anything like that in China or India.
The Old Testament (aka Torah/Tanakh) is practically anathema to "modern liberal ideals of political and economic freedom and social justice". I have no clue where you're getting that idea from.
"Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys" (1 Samuel 15:3)
Thanks, Kamuy I certainly can understand where you are coming from, and not just you but a lot of other people too.. But this take is not the last word for reasons I spell out in this piece on Jewish Law that I wrote decades ago: https://shorturl.at/Pn1KD
That's a marvelous essay, Razib. You brought us many interesting sources to go deeper if we want to, while stating your synthetic understanding of them, building a synoptic picture of how the West came to be.
I'm not that sure Russia is that different, albeit it's clearly diverse from "true Westerners", they're not only an old, big portion of Christemdom, but they've tried to modernize and westernize themselves several times. They were much more far appart from the West prior to the great Peter and Catherine, and they also tried to copy western industrialization on later 19th century.
I think Russia sphere is some sort of atavic "old Western ways" surface over a deeper core of eastern, non-western worldview. Some sort of not western, but close enough.
And I also think much of Latin America, undoublty under western Christemdom strong influence, adopting the descended languages coming from the Romans, are much like the pré-Enlightenined West once was. We are like what the West once was, as if we are a divergent evolution of 16th century Mediterranean portion of the West. Not alien to today's West core, but antiquated and not quite the same. Some sort of West periphery.
there is an analogy btwn latinx america and russia in that part of its elite is strongly oriented toward the core west cultures (see the influence of the french on the russian elites of 1800 or positivism in latinx america in the 19th century)
In the World Cultural Map, I would extend "the West" to all or part of Latin America. Certainly Argentina, Chile, southern Brazil, and the like, as they're similar to Spain, Portugal, and Italy culturally speaking.
yes but look at how far they are from spain in the cultural distance map. uruguay is the closest...and it is the most demographically/culturally european by most accounts.
True, but the other Latin American countries - with more indigenous ancestry - are even farther away from Southern Europe in the cultural distance map than Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and certainly Uruguay.
"the conversion just before 1000 AD of the pagan Magyar warlord Vajk, known to hagiographers as St. Stephen. His Bavarian German wife likely influenced his decision to embrace the new faith. But perhaps more compelling was that conversion would allow him to enter the good graces of a budding European commonwealth"
Or maybe he converted sincerely. We must not forget the possibility.
Progress that is both rapid enough to be noticed and stable enough to continue over many generations has been achieved only once in the history of our species.
- David Deutsch. The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
Placing Sicily outside of the west in 700 and 1400 is incorrect. 4 Popes in the 9th century were from Sicily and it was at the height of western civilization around 1150. It continued to be western after this and it slowly declined. It only wasn't western from 827 to 1061
i am aware of this history. my point is that in some ways sicily had become a westernmost outpost of the east for a bit with the expansion byzantine power in the west (greek was widely spoken by peasantry in southern italy and sicily)
Sure, I get that and Greek influence persisted strongly in late antiquity until, even through the Muslim conquest, and at the same time it was less purely Greek and formed as a functional hybrid at the upper echelons. by 1100 Sicily was an ethnic and cultural melting pot, but decidedly western in its court and fashion and by the time of the 1400, it was decidedly Western. Many of the persisting Byzantine church adherents are descended from immigrants from Albania hundreds of years ago.
I don't disagree that the "Jerusalem" of the Athens and Jerusalem pairing is more clearly tied to Christians than to Jews, but I think there were important themes in the Hebrew scriptures that deserve mention. In the Law, the Histories, and the Wisdom literature, the ongoing circularity of time is stressed. But in the Prophets, the future and the ultimate linearity of time is stressed. The World is to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Time thus became hybrid, almost helical. I don't think scientific thinking as we know it is possible without that. Also, the Prophets shifted the focus increasingly to religious attitude being as important as practice.
I don't think this undermines your overall point much, but I think there are more things in the stew than you suggested.
> The earliest Greek writing dates to the 8th century BC, …
No, as you later sort of admit, presumably about Linear B:
> … the Greeks of 1200 BC, who constructed vast fortified citadels, raided their neighbors across the Near East and employed literacy primarily as an accounting tool.
“primarily as an accounting tool” may well be true, but leaves a lot of room for other activities, not to mention cultural transmission from the Middle East to the West.
(Quoting myself in work-related context) Cyprus fun fact: The island may have skipped the illiteracy of the rest of the Greek-speaking world during the Greek Dark Ages: p. 614 Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, ed. Woodard.
In different ways, stolen land is a favourite concept of both Zionist propagandists and the postmodern nonsense left, and I would not think it the only way in which their thinking runs in similar grooves. Most land in England has been "stolen" many times over (the Normans, the Wars of the Roses, the dissolution of the monasteries), and yet there are villages where surnames recorded in fourteenth century taxation records predominate today.
Recently we have had loud campaigns for the return of objects from great museums to their countries of origin regardless of title. Where do we get the idea that cultural artifacts must be displayed where they were created? There is a pair of paintings called The Kongouro from New Holland and Portrait of a Large Dog, the earliest pictures of a kangaroo and a dingo, based on specimens from Captain Cook's voyages, by George Stubbs, famous for his portraits of horses. An Australian bid $9m for them at auction and was refused an export licence by the Department of Culture and they were "saved for the nation". I always thought that Australia should have had them.
I've been very unhappy with the term "cultural appropriation," because it's been expanded beyond its original (debatable) point about wearing traditional dress of other cultures as a costume being insulting to the idea that all cultural borrowings are somehow wrong. A lot of this is because the foundation of Western identity is (almost) entirely cultural appropriation. Rome heavily pillaged the cultural legacy of Hellenism, and then converted to a Semitic religion. The legacy of Rome then bounded together the West, expanding even to areas like Scandinavia, Ireland, and much of Germany, which never even had direct Roman rule in the time of the empire. Indeed, the weaving together of the West was to a large extent beating down the individual cultural mythologies of the Norse, the Irish, and many others, replacing them first with bible stories, and then later with the renaissance, the "rediscovery" of classic Greco-Roman mythos, binding nations together rather than rooting each in the particular. All of it based on "appropriating" stories (and practices, etc.) which were not endemic to the area.
Of course, all cultures borrow from one another and change over time. But I think pointing out how the West, itself, is founded on cultural borrowings from the "non-west" tends to shut a lot of annoying people up on both sides.
In different ways, stolen land is a favourite concept of both Zionist propagandists and the postmodern nonsense left, and I would not think it the only way in which their thinking runs in similar grooves. Most land in England has been "stolen" many times over (the Normans, the Wars of the Roses, the dissolution of the monasteries), and yet there are villages where surnames recorded in fourteenth century taxation records predominate today.
Recently we have had loud campaigns for the return of objects from great museums to their countries of origin regardless of title. Where do we get the idea that cultural artifacts must be displayed where they were created? There is a pair of paintings called The Kongouro from New Holland and Portrait of a Large Dog, the earliest pictures of a kangaroo and a dingo based on specimens from Captain Cook's voyages, by George Stubbs, famous for his portraits of horses. An Australian bid $9m for them at auction and was refused an export licence by the Department of Culture and they were "saved for the nation". I always thought that Australia should have had them.
Throw in the related controversy around "land acknowledgement." Stolen Land? It's all stolen. https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/stolen-land-its-all-stolen-land
Very interesting article! The great transformation that led to Classical Greece and post-exile Judaism was part of the “Axial Age revolution” that was much broader than future Western realm. It was one of the fundamental global steps in humanity evolution, comparable to beginning of the Bronze Age and first states and the Industrial revolution. It extended to India and China and, what is often forgotten, Persia, that developed in fact, an early monotheistic (or dualistic) religion - Zoroastrianism. it had a fundamental influence on Babylonian Jews, so that post-exile Judaism was very different than pre exile. It actually had a big cultural influence on Greeks too, although today only wars between them are remembered.
Excellent, stimulating, and persuasive. I knew about Henrich, but not Rubin and Sheidel.
In his fascinating autobiography, "Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History" (2023), Peter Brown says this about his "The World of Late Antiquity" (1971):
It "would not be a story of decline and fall, followed by catastrophic barbarian invasion ... Rather, it would be a study of change and continuity in a deeply rooted and sophisticated society."
He can say this, over 50 years after he wrote "World," because that brilliant book focuses on the south and east of the ancient Mediterranean world, where, as you point out, civilizational collapse is less evident. (Although it is very evident, for example, in Asia Minor and Cyprus, where urban civilization seems to have ceased completely by the mid-seventh century. Brown is not an archaeologist).
In his more recent "The Rise of Western Christendom" (2nd ed. 2003), which, as the title shows, focuses on the West, Brown acknowledges the evidence of collapse, but tends to temper those acknowledgments with insistent claims such as that "a long and opulent Roman past still had a place in the present." Again, he is not an archaeologist.
In an illuminating passage, he remarks that his own deep interest in the ancient Near East stems from his Irish Protestant background, because "the Church of Ireland maintained an intensely biblical version of Protestantism" centered on reading the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New in Greek.
for those who do not know david's book *from plato to nato* was highly influential in my thought and this essay would not exist without it :)
even the rise of western christendom had a fair amount of stuff on the east med. tho. just where so much of the action was...
i think perhaps ward-perkins type analyses overlook persistence of elite *romanitas* as a surface layer tho. but it's important to note that romanitas was much more thoro before the fall in the west...
The idea that ancient Jews and their religion are one of the bedrock pillars of modern Western civilization is a grandiose exaggeration in my opinion
Looking at the content of Judaism, you can see that Judaism is very clearly an exclusive ethno-religion that places one group (the Jews) as more important than everyone else in the world. The Jews in Babylon elaborated on this in their Talmud by writing that all humans have an animalistic soul, but only the Jews have a special divine soul on top -- the implication being that non-Jews do not have the same ability to act in an altruistic and genuinely moral way as Jews do. This is in extreme stark contrast to the universal nature of Christianity.
Furthermore, traditional Jewish religion places numerous regressive restrictions on Jews that simply don't exist in Christianity. This includes men not being allowed to listen to women singing, stoning adulterers, couples not being allowed to touch each other or give anything to each other while the wife is on her period, and countless arcane restrictions on eating and clothing.
Not to mention the fact that many scholars would consider the Hebrew Bible to be one of the most objectively violent (if not the most violent) texts among modern world religions. The Hebrew Bible includes multiple instances of Jews committing genocide on their neighbors, not even sparing animals and infants. This along with God himself committing genocide on humans at his own whim.
Thus, it is more accurate to say that the nature of western Christianity -- such as universal justice and equality and the idea of a democratic faith-based (rather than rules-based) salvation -- is despite its foundations in ancient Judaism, not because of it.
Finally, you ignore the elephant in the room being the unique social structure in western Europe throughout the medieval and early modern era that I believe play a larger role in shaping the West than ancient philosophies and religions. Namely, manorialism, which fostered cooperation between non-kin groups, and strict prohibitions on extended kin marriage molded Westerners into being uniquely cooperative toward non-kin groups and low in clannishness. One could argue that the reason the Enlightenment and the idea of universal morality took off in the West is because of these unique social structures. After all, the West was not the only society exposed to ancient Greek philosophy and Judaism.
"Namely, manorialism, which fostered cooperation between non-kin groups, and strict prohibitions on extended kin marriage molded Westerners into being uniquely cooperative toward non-kin groups and low in clannishness. "
i explicitly referenced heinrich. did you read the post?
second, the stuff about the talmud is irrelevant. once christianity emerged i don't think the jews had much influence. i was very precise with terms like hebrews, israelites and jews in this piece...
I stopped midway into my reading to write the response, so I missed the snippet on Heinrich. I apologize for that. But it would've been nice in an article on "How the West was wraught" to go more in detail into Heinrich's and others' theories on why the West is "WEIRD", as I believe that's more consequential.
You're right about the Talmud being technically irrelevant, but I brought it up as an example of the stark contrast between the ethos of Judaism (and more broadly the Hebrews'/Israelites' belief) and the ethos of western Christianity.
Anecdotally, African strains of Christianity place a lot more emphasis on the Old Testament than Western forms of Christianity usually do. I think that may be a good illustration of why the Hebrew Bible is not fundamental to the modern Western ethos.
If I am not mistaken, the ancient Hebrews bequeathed to Christianity, and hence to the West, the concept of History (with a capital H) along with our modern liberal ideals of political and economic freedom and social justice as the ultimate terminus of that History. You won't find anything like that in China or India.
The Old Testament (aka Torah/Tanakh) is practically anathema to "modern liberal ideals of political and economic freedom and social justice". I have no clue where you're getting that idea from.
"Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys" (1 Samuel 15:3)
Thanks, Kamuy I certainly can understand where you are coming from, and not just you but a lot of other people too.. But this take is not the last word for reasons I spell out in this piece on Jewish Law that I wrote decades ago: https://shorturl.at/Pn1KD
After you read it, let me hear from you again.
There’s always That One Guy…
Inspiring synthesis, thank you. It keeps me excited and optimistic about the future of the West.
i think there isn't a real good alternative for a global civilization
Maybe there won't be a global civilization?
We have to realize the dynamism comes from a continual process of destruction and rebuilding. Nothing lasts forever except the animating spirit.
That's a marvelous essay, Razib. You brought us many interesting sources to go deeper if we want to, while stating your synthetic understanding of them, building a synoptic picture of how the West came to be.
I'm not that sure Russia is that different, albeit it's clearly diverse from "true Westerners", they're not only an old, big portion of Christemdom, but they've tried to modernize and westernize themselves several times. They were much more far appart from the West prior to the great Peter and Catherine, and they also tried to copy western industrialization on later 19th century.
I think Russia sphere is some sort of atavic "old Western ways" surface over a deeper core of eastern, non-western worldview. Some sort of not western, but close enough.
And I also think much of Latin America, undoublty under western Christemdom strong influence, adopting the descended languages coming from the Romans, are much like the pré-Enlightenined West once was. We are like what the West once was, as if we are a divergent evolution of 16th century Mediterranean portion of the West. Not alien to today's West core, but antiquated and not quite the same. Some sort of West periphery.
there is an analogy btwn latinx america and russia in that part of its elite is strongly oriented toward the core west cultures (see the influence of the french on the russian elites of 1800 or positivism in latinx america in the 19th century)
In the World Cultural Map, I would extend "the West" to all or part of Latin America. Certainly Argentina, Chile, southern Brazil, and the like, as they're similar to Spain, Portugal, and Italy culturally speaking.
yes but look at how far they are from spain in the cultural distance map. uruguay is the closest...and it is the most demographically/culturally european by most accounts.
True, but the other Latin American countries - with more indigenous ancestry - are even farther away from Southern Europe in the cultural distance map than Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and certainly Uruguay.
"the conversion just before 1000 AD of the pagan Magyar warlord Vajk, known to hagiographers as St. Stephen. His Bavarian German wife likely influenced his decision to embrace the new faith. But perhaps more compelling was that conversion would allow him to enter the good graces of a budding European commonwealth"
Or maybe he converted sincerely. We must not forget the possibility.
Progress that is both rapid enough to be noticed and stable enough to continue over many generations has been achieved only once in the history of our species.
- David Deutsch. The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
Placing Sicily outside of the west in 700 and 1400 is incorrect. 4 Popes in the 9th century were from Sicily and it was at the height of western civilization around 1150. It continued to be western after this and it slowly declined. It only wasn't western from 827 to 1061
not sure byzantine sicily was really western by my definition
You may be right, but this guy seems to think there was an interesting relationship and a merger of the old italian/Roman aristocratic class with Greek office holders. https://csla.princeton.edu/events/lecture-panagiotis-theodoropoulos-roman-sicily-sicilian-rome-sicilian-influence-rome-seventh
i am aware of this history. my point is that in some ways sicily had become a westernmost outpost of the east for a bit with the expansion byzantine power in the west (greek was widely spoken by peasantry in southern italy and sicily)
Sure, I get that and Greek influence persisted strongly in late antiquity until, even through the Muslim conquest, and at the same time it was less purely Greek and formed as a functional hybrid at the upper echelons. by 1100 Sicily was an ethnic and cultural melting pot, but decidedly western in its court and fashion and by the time of the 1400, it was decidedly Western. Many of the persisting Byzantine church adherents are descended from immigrants from Albania hundreds of years ago.
I don't disagree that the "Jerusalem" of the Athens and Jerusalem pairing is more clearly tied to Christians than to Jews, but I think there were important themes in the Hebrew scriptures that deserve mention. In the Law, the Histories, and the Wisdom literature, the ongoing circularity of time is stressed. But in the Prophets, the future and the ultimate linearity of time is stressed. The World is to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Time thus became hybrid, almost helical. I don't think scientific thinking as we know it is possible without that. Also, the Prophets shifted the focus increasingly to religious attitude being as important as practice.
I don't think this undermines your overall point much, but I think there are more things in the stew than you suggested.
Great article that, for me, bears re-reading.
And now, the West erases itself, replacing itself with other people groups. Hooray.
> The earliest Greek writing dates to the 8th century BC, …
No, as you later sort of admit, presumably about Linear B:
> … the Greeks of 1200 BC, who constructed vast fortified citadels, raided their neighbors across the Near East and employed literacy primarily as an accounting tool.
“primarily as an accounting tool” may well be true, but leaves a lot of room for other activities, not to mention cultural transmission from the Middle East to the West.
(Quoting myself in work-related context) Cyprus fun fact: The island may have skipped the illiteracy of the rest of the Greek-speaking world during the Greek Dark Ages: p. 614 Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, ed. Woodard.
I am confused about the comment: “Greek logos and Jewish thumos”. Perhaps you meant Greek logos and Jewish ruach?
In different ways, stolen land is a favourite concept of both Zionist propagandists and the postmodern nonsense left, and I would not think it the only way in which their thinking runs in similar grooves. Most land in England has been "stolen" many times over (the Normans, the Wars of the Roses, the dissolution of the monasteries), and yet there are villages where surnames recorded in fourteenth century taxation records predominate today.
Recently we have had loud campaigns for the return of objects from great museums to their countries of origin regardless of title. Where do we get the idea that cultural artifacts must be displayed where they were created? There is a pair of paintings called The Kongouro from New Holland and Portrait of a Large Dog, the earliest pictures of a kangaroo and a dingo, based on specimens from Captain Cook's voyages, by George Stubbs, famous for his portraits of horses. An Australian bid $9m for them at auction and was refused an export licence by the Department of Culture and they were "saved for the nation". I always thought that Australia should have had them.