Introduction : rewriting the story of western civilization
Minoan artifacts challenge the inevitability of patriarchy
The mystery of Minoan civilization
An expectation of rebirth or immortality
Time as a circle rather than a line
The troubling question of war
Crete and the issue of female sexuality
The ecstatic and the divine as inseperable
Five values dramatically at odds with patriarchy
The collapse of the Minoan world
The invasions of 1600 BCE : a war culture emerges
The Theran explosion : the loss of faith in Mother Earth
The growth of trade : the diminishment of daughters
The great civil war over marriage : the end of women-centered culture in the eastern Mediterranean
A warrior civilization emerges
Four hundred years of chaos sets the stage
Values shaped by storytellers
An exaggerated feminine is made monstrous
Mother Earth is overthrown
Jason resists the many shapes of seductive women
Odysseus rejects Calypso
Homer poses the choice between love and property
Clytemnestra is sacrificed on the altar of marriage
Marriage destroys the mother-daughter bond
Daughters die for civic good
A multitude of myths to tame, punish, and disparage women
Oedipus, the lost son
A glorious monument enshrining the subordination of women
Biblical patriarchs match the Greek story
Objections to the warrior civilization
Jesus carries forward the Eleusian symbolism of grain and wine
Jesus takes on the threat of military destruction
Ancient beliefs spring up among the Celts
A short-lived Islamic challenge
The metaphor of the holy grail
Devil talk and witch burnings
Closing the book on the patriarchy
History as a choice of stories
Women coming home to dignity
The declining utility of war
Another story all along.