I've had a touch of Egyptomania most of my life, long before I knew it was a word. I loved to watch the fanciful Egyptian themed movie reruns as a kid (and adult!), replete with pyramids, mysteries, and mummies coming to life. A favorite pendant of mine is a vintage metal Egyptian scene, and one of my favorite mystery novel series features Egyptologist and detective Amelia Peabody. I was drawn to Bob Brier’s Egyptomania like a moth to a flame.

Brier is able to convey his enthusiasm for Egyptian themed objects and historical material. One can feel his delight at a find in a Paris shop or auction. His professional background as an Archaeologist enables him to link Egyptomania with Egyptian archaeological events with the authority of an expert. His enthusiasm and ability to bring historical engineering feats to life will have you cheering each time an obelisk is successfully moved and feel the heaviness of defeat when things go wrong.

As you follow Brier through the years, he carefully links the peaks of Egyptomania with the events that triggered each new wave of Egyptomania. There is a lot of time devoted to describing the feats of engineering in moving the various monoliths to various countries. However, there are also plenty of fascinating details on the various Egyptian inspired objects, from dinnerware, to jewelry, to tobacco tins and more. Briar’s book shows how Egyptomania pervaded all aspects of culture – from fashion to manufacturing, to art and even music. An engaging and enlightening read! ( )

I've always been fascinated with ancient Egypt's pharaohs and their pyramids and customs, but am not very enthusiastic about Bob Brier's Egyptomania. So much of the stuff in the book seems silly to me. That said, it's a handsome book with three sections of color plates and many black and white illustrations. I'm sure it would be loads of fun for the right audience. Unfortunately, that audience is not me. ( )

The subtitle of this book regarding "Our Three Thousand Year Obsession" with Egypt raises the irritating question: Who are "we"? Author Bob Brier encourages the reader to identify with Roman emperors and a Renaissance pope, as well as Napoleon and his team of scholars. Brier himself is a popularizing Egyptologist, and this book leverages his personal collection of Egyptophilic consumer artifacts along with research into the historical contexts of the various Egyptian "revivals" (or "manias," as he would put it) in European and American taste. The result combines a survey of Egypto-kitsch with the cheeriest history of imperialist domination of northeast Africa you're ever likely to read.

The considerable amplitude of the topic results in some evident omissions. Despite an account of mummy tunes from Tin Pan Alley, and an accessible survey of Egyptian themes in 20th-century cinema, there is nothing about operas such as Mozart's Magic Flute or Verdi's Aida. Brier briefly discusses the involvement of American Freemasons in the transport and installation of the New York obelisk, but he doesn't touch on the high profile of ancient Egyptian religion in the movements of modern occultism. He does, however deliver the full goods on a history of relevant touring museum exhibits, and Egyptian-styled tobacco packaging.

The whole thing reads very quickly, and contains a host of amusing historical anecdotes. It's a book that almost seems determined to avoid the importance of its subject matter, reducing cultural intercourse to issues of personal obsession and popular appeal. ( )

It's a good bet that most people have been fascinated with the land of the pharaohs at some point in their life, and the appeal of Bob Brier's Egyptomania is that it explores this fascination with Egypt, though the lens of the items created to express it, instead of the ancient culture itself. Brier's enthusiasm for his topic and the culture that inspired it shines throughout the book, and he's equally charming when geeking out on the science of transporting ancient monoliths and eyerolling at the anachronisms and inaccuracies of Egyptomania (e.g. "Old" King Tut and geography that places Baghdad in Egypt).

That said, Brier gets a bit too into the weeds on the technicalities of moving and re-erecting obelisks in the west. Fully 40 percent of the book is devoted to this topic and the reader is likely to be heartily bored of it by the fourth time it rolls around. Brier would have been better served devoting some of this page space to other fascinating aspects of Egyptomania that get short shrift in comparison, such as Tutmania and mummy movies. The book also suffers from some shoddy editing, not the least of which is the text's frequently directing readers to the wrong image or color plate. Finally, the final chapters are much shorter, shallower, and sloppier than the early ones, and one gets the distinct sense that they were a bit of a rush job.

That said, this book covers a unique topic and includes many pages of lovely full color illustrations. It's certainly worth perusing at the library to see whether one might want a copy permanently on your shelf.

A note about these newly posted non-link reviews.

I suppose that I should stop being surprised when books that I get via the LibraryThing.com “Early Reviewers” program aren't exactly what I had anticipated them to be when I clicked that “Request it!” link. After all, these are (usually) new books coming out, for which the publishers are looking to get some “early” buzz working. This means that I pretty much only have the paragraph or so of promo copy in the listing to make a decision on whether or not I'd be interested in reading/reviewing a particular title.

It's not that Bob Brier's Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs had a misleading blurb … but this “inventive and mesmerizing tour of how an ancient civilization endures in ours today” sounded like it was going to be more, well, serious than it ended up. Perhaps my confusion on that point was influenced by the famed Zahi Hawass providing an Introduction here. Hawass is well known for his toeing the “official Egyptological line” in all things (especially in contrast to any new age or alternative timeline views), but maybe his removal as Minister of Antiquities in the wake of the overthrow of Mubarak has left him at loose ends and he's become more amenable to expanding his repertoire.

What I was expecting was more along the line of cultural survivals of Egyptian elements, from architectural residuals (which there are several noted here), to “secret societies”' appropriation of the images and vocabulary, to perhaps even reflections on just how deeply the Christian mythos is intertwined with the figures of Isis, Horus, Osiris, and Set … but this doesn't delve into those fascinating topics, but concentrates largely on Egyptian stuff … from the acquisition of various monuments to the predictable explosion of Egyptian-themed kitch every time something comes up to thrust the (ancient) Egyptians into the Western cultural groupthink.

The author, Bob Brier, is noted to have “been amassing one of the largest collections of Egyptian memorabilia” for the past forty years, but his resume seems pretty thin on actual Egyptology, with degrees in Philosophy and Parapsychology (not that I'm the type to diss Psi research, but still), and he's been teaching at Long Island University since the early 70s. He has spent a long time studying mummification, and has even performed this arcane art on a cadaver in 1994 … but he seems to be more in the “enthusiastic amateur” mold (with a good travel budget) who has visited a lot of sites, than somebody who's done seasons with a spade from the archaeological side.

This goes a long way to explain why the book is full of tchotchkes, antique advertising, and assorted ephemera, and not with more substantial cultural concerns. Now, to be fair, the book does attempt to make a historical survey of the influence of Egypt in Western culture. From the Greeks, with Herodotus tracing “almost all aspects of Greek civilization back to the Egyptians”, and Alexander conquering Egypt and making it the jewel of his empire, and on through the fascination and integration that Rome brought to the subject (from the empire-wide popularizing of the Isis cult to the notorious extinguishing of the Ptolemaic dynasty by Julius Caesar and Mark Antony).

Nearly half the book is taken up with stories of how the assorted obelisks made their way from Egypt to Rome, Paris, London, and New York. Rome's came early, having been imported by Caligula in 37 c.e., and was a fixture of his (and Nero's) circus – which used to be right about where Vatican City sits. Aside for noting that in 391 c.e., (Christian) Emperor Theodosius I decreed that all Egyptian temples be closed (with the last hieroglyphic inscription being made in 394), the next part of this history comes in 1585 c.e., when the original version of St. Peter's Basilica was being re-built, and moved from its original site. After having that obelisk sitting in its front yard (as it were) for over 1,000 years, the Church decided it had to be moved to the new site, and this was accomplished by one Domenico Fontana in 1586, “considered one of the great engineering feats of the Renaissance”.

One of the most fascinating parts of Egyptomania is the material regarding Napoleon Bonaparte, very little of it particularly complimentary. In 1798 he opted out of an assignment to directly attack England, and instead convinced the revolutionary Directory to send him to Egypt (like his hero Alexander) to attack British interests there. To his credit, Napoleon brought a large contingent of academics and engineers, from whose researches we have the baseline scholarly knowledge of Egypt. The Egyptian campaign did not go particularly well, and Napoleon abandoned his army, returned to France, and minted medallions celebrating his triumph.

Situations in Egypt were somewhat chaotic, as the British, after chasing off the remnants of Napoleon's forces, pretty much just packed up and headed home. Egyptian rulers offered obelisks to a whole succession of British monarchs, to no result, and they eventually offered them to France ... since many French savants had been in Egypt, they jumped at the chance, and in 1836 the first of these arrived in Paris.

The Brits, of course, suddenly realized that they'd been missing out on this obelisk stuff, and a commercial venture was assembled to bring one to London. A submarine-like cylinder of a ship was built in 1877 to carry the obelisk, and it was to be towed through the Mediterranean and up Europe's Atlantic coast and on to England. Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating and in an October storm, a number of crew died trying to secure the ship, which was lost. Lost, but not sunk, and it was claimed as salvage a short time later, and “ransomed” through the courts. The obelisk finally was raised in London in September 1878 … sparking a massive wave of Victorian “Egyptomania” with nearly endless Egyptian-themed stuff and ads clearly made by the clueless for consumers with no more idea of what the “real” Egypt looked like!

American interests were already angling for an obelisk, and one was arranged for in 1878, but it took nearly three years to get it set up in Central Park, with the installation coming in February of 1881. At least the New York contingent had learned from the French and British, as the engineering had been well thought-through to not only get the obelisk across the ocean, but into the center of the city. Interestingly, the Masons had a lot to do with this one, and there were supposedly Masonic items found in the base in Egypt, and they were a significant part of the events connected to raising it – although the Grand Master very clearly noted that there were no Freemasons around that far back.

Of course, the biggest blasts of “Egyptomania” followed the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922, leading to products, music, films, fashion, etc. This was echoed again when, in the 1970's the Treasures of Tutankhamen exhibit went on tour, with more products, and music like Steve Martin's “King Tut”. The movies started in 1923 and haven't let up, with mummy-themed movie following mummy-themed movie for the past 90 years … these are also looked at here in detail.

Anyway, while Egyptomania wasn't the book that I'd sort of hoped it might be, there was certainly plenty of very interesting stuff the I'd never encountered previously to keep me engaged. I could have done with less of the “cultural kitsch”, but I guess that's what's in the author's collection, so there are a hundred or so illustrations ... handy, I suppose, if you had an itch to know what the cover art for the “Cleopatra Had A Jazz Band” sheet music looked like in the 20's. This has just been out a couple of months so it's likely findable out in the more pop-culture oriented brick-and-mortars, but the online big boys have it at a significant discount. The read provided lots of “I did not know that!” moments, but even more “Did I need to know that?” stuff in here – yet fans of Antique Road Show may love it.


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A link to my "real" review:
BTRIPP's review of Bob Brier's Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs (1343 words)