Bibliography
By Arnoldo Momigliano. Scholarly. Exploration of the Greeks and their contact with the nations of the Celts, Persians and Jews, and their perception of them.
In Aryans and British India, Thomas Trautman explores the relationship between the British colonialism of India and the formulation of the Aryan myth.
Franz Cumont, the Belgian Archeologist, was the great expert of Mithraism and one of the most prominent scholars of the 20th century. Though written nearly a hundred years ago, his studies remain some of the most thorough. In Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans, he explores the date and origin of astrology in Babylon, and its subsequent penetration into ancient Greece and Rome.
Janet Abu-Lughod's Before European Hegemony: The World System AD 125--1350, argues that the modern world economy did not have its roots in the sixteenth century, but in the thirteenth century economy; a system far different from the European world. A fascinating account of the international trade between Asia, Europe and the Middle East that was sparked as a result of the Mongol Empire. That was the period that gave birth to the modern age.
Although Bernal falters by over-emphasizing a cultural connection with Africa, Black Athena: Volume I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785 - 1985 is a great introduction to the distortion of history, and the suppression of evidence in favour of the Aryan model.
By Frank Moore Cross Jr. A classic. Some have sought to make the case that Judaism was derived from Canaanite cult worship. However, it was after the Babylonian Exile, the Bible was altered to conform with these pagan ideas that featured in the new esoteric interpretation of the Kabbalah. It this is understood, then this book is a useful examination of parallels between the Bible and Canaanite religion.
Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient, also by M.L. West. A better work is Cumont and Bidez' les Mages Hellenisees, which has yet to be translated into English. West's work I think looks too closely at the trees and fails to see the forest. The fact of Magian influence on Greek philosophy is more obvious than what he explores. Still, it's the one work in English that carefully explores the subject.
By Jessie L. Weston. Explores the Gnostic origins of the myths of the Holy Grail, and its possible connection to the ancient worship of Attis and Mithras. From the era of James Frazer, and therefore somewhat out of date, but nevertheless, interesting connections and certainly valuable.