Babylon Under Western Eyes: A Study of Allusion and Myth

‘A superb work of multidisciplinary scholarship, Scheil’s study will be of interest in a variety of academic disciplines, as it masterfully weaves together textual and historical analysis… Highly recommended.’

M.Roberts, Choice, vol 54:03:2016

‘Scheil has done a tremendous job of winnowing a near-endless supply of material down to essential cultural grains… An ambitious, often challenging, and almost always entertaining and engaging monograph.’

Jay Rubenstein, The Medieval Review, December 2016

‘Babylon under Western Eyes is a fascinating study of an important word that has shaped western culture in powerful ways.’

Alice Ogden Bellis, Modern Philology vol 115:01:2017

"This book is a major achievement and will contribute a great deal to critical conversations in the areas of medievalism and race studies as well as to growing scholarship on genre fiction."

Carl Kears. King's College London, University of Toronto Quarterly, vol 87 3, Summer 2018

"In Babylon under Western Eyes, Andrew Scheil has created a remarkable piece of literary criticism: by following his subject across a range of languages, eras, disciplines, and genres, he traces the history of a metaphor that is simultaneously grounded in historical thinking and that exceeds the sum of its historical parts."

Mary Kate Hurley, Ohio University, Speculum

"In its powerful combination of philological learning and cultural interpretation, Babylon under Western Eyes: A Study of Allusion and Myth at its best calls to mind the critical essays of Erich Auerbach. Scheil surveys the imaginative reception of Babylon from ancient Hebrew and Greek texts to recent pulp fiction and campy film. A special prominence is given to the Middle Ages, which harmonized the discordant strands inherited from the classical world. In turn the Middle Ages bequeathed a flexible set of concepts that continue to inform the way we think about the pastness of history, degeneracy, ruin, and other themes associated with Babylon."

Daniel Donoghue, John P. Marquand Professor of English, Harvard University

"Babylon under Western Eyes is educational in the best sense of the word. Andrew Scheil's book includes a vast range of literature, medieval, ancient, and modern, ranging from Herodotus to the contemporary genres of science fiction and fantasy."

Haruko Momma, Department of English, New York University

"An engaging and ambitious study marked by its author's singular intelligence and deep learning, Babylon under Western Eyes knits together into a compelling and coherent narrative many of the different strands of a myth that has been woven into the fabric of Western culture for almost as long as it has existed."

Mark Amodio, Department of English, Vassar College