Martin Bernal (1937-2013), scholar
Martin Bernal (1937-2013) was a British American scholar.
Biography
Martin Gardiner Bernal was born on March 10, 1937, in London, England to John Desmond Bernal, a prominent British scientist and radical political activist, and Margaret Gardiner, a writer.
Bernal graduated from King’s College, Cambridge, England in 1957, earned a diploma of Chinese language from Peking University in 1960 and did graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1963 and Harvard in 1964. He received his PhD in Oriental studies from the University of Cambridge in 1966 and remained there as a fellow until he was recruited by Cornell University, where he taught Chinese political history at Cornell from 1972 until 2001.
His controversial series of books on "Black Athena" drew attention on the Egyptian and Semitic (or Phoenician) roots of ancient Greek civilization.
Bernal died on June 9, 2013 in Cambridge, England.