Since the middle of the eighteenth century, the classical world has been seen as foundational and exemplary to Western civilization. However, the Greeks never invaded and colonised western and northern Europe the way the Romans did, and, conversely, Greece was a difficult place to reach for modern travellers well into the nineteenth century. Inevitably, therefore, the links with ancient Greece were a product of the imagination: an exemplary civilization, in its politics, arts, and culture. There was one problem, however: the Greeks, it seemed, enjoyed pederastic relations. And not only this:...

The appearance of Martin Bernal's Black Athena: The Afro-Asian Roots of Classical Civilization in 1987 sparked intense debate and controversy in Africa, Europe, and North America. His detailed genealogy of the 'fabrication of Greece' and his claims for the influence of ancient African and Near Eastern cultures on the making of classical Greece, questioned many intellectuals' assumptions about the nature of ancient history.
The transportation of enslaved African persons into Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean, brought African and diasporic African people into contact in significant...

Sex is always paradoxical. On the one hand, it is one of the most natural activities in which human beings engage. Without sex, we wouldn't be here. We simply cannot live without it. On the other hand, sexuality has given rise to some of the most complex and taboo issues in the history of civilization. What counts as sex? Are same-sex relationships 'natural' or constructed? Why is sodomy considered a crime in one era and merely as a perversion or as titillating in the next? And what of pederasty? Why did the ancient Greeks socially and culturally sanction sexual activities that now seem to us...