CHOSEN PEOPLE FROM THE CAUCASUS

In Chosen People From the Caucasus, Bradley extends his iceman theory to a provocative and controversial discussion of the Hebrews. "Given their relatively small numbers, Jews have had an inordinately great influence on Western Civilization," says Bradley. "And given the fact that Western civilization has come to dominate the world over the past five hundred years, Jews have accordingly played a major role in the unfolding drama of all humanity." Is this historical phenomenon merely coincidence, Jewish birthright or are there more plausible explanations? Michael Bradley presents a well-documented work that dares to ask and answer these important questions. Chosen People from the Caucasus focuses on the two separate groups of people who emerged from the Caucasus mountains of the Middle East; those people who comprise the vast majority of Modern Jewry, who converted to Judaism about 740 A.D. and were later pushed into Central and Eastern Europe by Mongol invasions, and the Biblical Hebrews who emerged 2700 years earlier. Both peoples, ironically, are considered to be "Jews" - although they have no direct historical or genetic connection to each other. Bradley commends that people and cultures emerging from the Caucasus mountains (a known refuge of late-lingering Neanderthal populations) in proto-historical and historical times would have remained highly aggressive and psychosexually maladapted. Beneath the mystique of "the chosen people," the cultural fusion of these two separate streams of "Jews" has, since the 16th century, played an important role in the evolution of Western civilization and thus, in the molding of the entire world's present cultural profile.