First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This work is a critical examination of Maat, the moral ideal in ancient Egypt. It seeks to present Maat in the language of modern moral discourse while at the same time preserving and building on its distinctiveness as a moral ideal capable of inspiring and maintaining ethical philosophic reflection. The effort here is one of both interpretation and transmission of an ethical tradition, a project in which tradition is seen not simply as a precondition and process in which one comes, but also as an ongoing product of one's efforts to understand it. Locating himself within the tradition, the author seeks to test the conceptual elasticity of its major categories and contentions and to establish its capacity for critical moral discourse.

English translation of selected Ancient Egyptian texts, bringing to life the sapiential, magical, ceremonial and theological traditions at work in the 'House of Life' of Pharaonic Egypt. Included are: Instruction to Hordedef, Instruction to Kagemni, Pyramid Texts (of Unas), Instruction to Merikare, To Become Magic, Discourse of a Man with his Ba, Instruction to Amenemhat, The Great Praise of the Aten, The Book of the Cow of Heaven, Hymns to Amun, The Shabaka Stone, Instruction to Amen-em-apt, The Adoration of Re. These readings span a period of thirteen centuries, covering all important stages of Ancient Egyptian literature. Translated from Egyptian originals and ordered chronologically, these texts were considered by the Ancient Egyptians as part of the core of their vast literature.

A return to the substance and source of African morality by recovering the rational kernel of Africa's ancient moral and ethical traditions and putting it to paper. The term Maat essentially means "truth and justice incarnate" in all aspects of life. Our aim in preparing this book is to serve as a bridge, a portal, a medium for transmitting the transcendental wisdom of our ancestors across centuries, to absorb the most valuable elements of preceding ancient and modern developments, molding those vast experiences into an enlightening repository of guiding principles.--Page 18-19.

The first economic history of ancient Egypt employing a New Institutional Economics approach and covering the entire pharaonic period, 3000-30 BCE.