Here, for the first time, an author weaves together threads that explain the mysterious disappearance of ancient cultures in which women and the environment were at the center, a loss that has dramatically influenced 3,500 years of Western history.

The ancient world had not only treated women with respect but had been more resistant to war, more attentive to earth's cycles, more ecstatic overall. Then suddenly the whole culture vanished. The loss was ushered in by volcanoes and poets, gods of death and caricatures of maddening women, like Scylla, Charybdis, Medea, and Calypso—all of whom were intended to discredit an old civilization and install a new order. That new order secured patriarchal property, installed male gods, and established a requirement that respectable women be either virgin or married. In Search of the Lost Feminine is a fascinating study of Western history and the metaphor of the Holy Grail.