Jeffrey Abt's "American Egyptologist," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: American Egyptologist: The Life of James Henry Breasted and the Creation of His Oriental Institute by Jeffrey Abt.

The entry begins:

Harrison Ford, of course, is my first choice. But I’d cast him as he is today: older, seasoned by life’s travails, less swashbuckling, but still charismatic. Though seemingly far-fetched, my preference comes from Indiana Jones’s remark, near the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, that he studied archaeology at the University of Chicago—the school where my subject, James Henry Breasted, created his Oriental Institute. When George Lucas was asked why he wrote Chicago into the film, he replied it was because he believed Chicago was “one of the best universities for archaeological study.” That impression underscores the impact of Breasted’s career on the American imagination.

Breasted was not just an Egyptologist and daring explorer, however. He was also...[read on]

Learn more about American Egyptologist at the University of Chicago Press website and Jeffrey Abt's website.

Jeffrey Abt is associate professor in the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History at Wayne State University. He is also the author of A Museum on the Verge: A Socioeconomic History of the Detroit Institute of Arts, 1885–2000.

My Book, The Movie: American Egyptologist.

--Marshal Zeringue