Her experience as a youth with Nazism infecting and eventually overwhelming her country gave her frightful insight into a basic paradigm of human society, which she calls “the dominator paradigm” (which I often refer to as “patriarchy”), represented in its extreme by the violent, authoritarian fascist German state. Born in Vienna, Austria, her family fled from the Nazis to Cuba when she was a child, and she later emigrated to the United States where she continues to live and work today. The book is The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler, a feminist, activist and futurist with degrees in sociology and law from the University of California. I persist in the view that that scholarship is riddled with absurdities and find it hard to believe that the overwhelming majority of historians will not share my judgment.In the early 1990s I read a book that, more so than anything I had read before or since, transformed the way I look at the world and helped me distill and inspired me to pursue my life’s purpose. The issue does not concern the interpretation of human nature - over which disagreement has persisted since the dawn of literacy.
Eisler's assumptions about human nature than with my own.
Loye should know, most contemporary Marxists would more likely agree with Ms. Loye's roster and unshaken in my judgment. Eisler's book stands on its merits and no appeal to the endorsements of learned authorities can either save or condemn it. Loye's spirited defense notwithstanding, Ms. Rather than resorting to distorting omission (for example, failure to even hint at the archeological evidence discussed at length in the book, backing its conclusions), quoting out of context and ridicule, an honest review from someone who believes (and this is a quotation from the review within context) that ''violent conflict'' is the ''midwife to some of the greatest leaps toward freedom,'' and who intimates that war is just ''human nature,'' would have openly addressed the author's and the reviewer's fundamental ideological differences.
In contrast to the reviewer's attempt to trivialize this extraordinary work, assessments by the above group ranged from ''groundbreaking'' and ''catalytic and pioneering'' to ''the most important book since Darwin's 'Origin of Species.' '' They include the following authorities well known in their respective fields, in alphabetical order: Ralph Abraham, Jessie Bernard, Carol Christ, Marija Gimbutas, Wilma Scott Heide, Hazel Henderson, Mara Keller, Ervin Laszlo, Jean Baker Miller, Ashley Montagu, Nicolas Platon, Merlin Stone, Charles Tilly, Barbara Walker. Because its reconstruction of our past, present and future is based on neglected (and even suppressed) as well as long-established findings from a wide range of fields, and because this reconstruction differs so greatly from traditional (including the reviewer's Marxist) views, sections relevant to their expertise were screened for accuracy by two archeologists, two historians, an anthropologist, two systems theorists, three sociologists, three psychologists, three religious studies scholars, two art historians and an economist. I am one of 19 social scientists and other scholars, both male and female, who reviewed this book prior to its recent publication. As one acquainted with Riane Eisler's book ''The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future'' from its inception, I am writing regarding the distortion and misrepresentation of this remarkable book as antimale ''science fiction'' by its reviewer, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese (Oct.