"This book of 700 close-printed pages is remarkable for its range of erudition covering the ancient religiophilosophical thought and some aspects of the art of the diverse cultures from Greece through the Near East to Persia and India. It is the fruit of some 30 years of research. But is is also remarkable for many misrepresentations, some egregious errors of fact and, consequently, injudicious conclusions.... McEvilley himself, as has been demonstrated in the preceding pages, shows repeated willfulness in (mis-)representing and (mis-)handling of the evidence. Nonetheless, this erudite book is worth consulting provided the reader can spot the author’s facile assumptions, careless remarks, sweeping generalizations and unwarranted judgments."