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Review title: A pretty crummy book ....
Product review: I rated this book at one star only because amazon.com doesn't allow a reviewer the option of zero stars. The author of this book is a biochemist -- not a trained historian -- and her amateurism certainly shows, particulary in the early chapters where a competent historian would be careful in the assessment of the historicity of sources. So Alic retails a tradition -- presented as though it has a factual basis -- about Moses and his wife operating a medical school in Egypt. Never mind that there is virtually no evidence independent of the Bible that Moses even existed. Perhaps needless to say that the Bible contains no mention of said medical school. Shortly thereafter readers are told that Cleopatra studied human anatomy and physiology by dissecting condemned prisoners alive. The source for this horror story turns out to be a rabbinical tradition -- scarcely an unbiased source when dealing with Greeks or Greek culture. The rest of the book is at best naive hagiography.
