Who were the Phoenicians ?

There is little doubt that the invention of the phonetic alphabet was a pivotal event in the development of human culture, paralleled in importance by only a handful of events such as the beginning of tool-making and the invention of Gutenberg's printing press... The development of the phonetic alphabet is commonly attributed to a mysterious ancient civilization, known as 'Phoenician'... Many researchers have addressed this mystery, and a multitude of ideas and conjectures have been made in hundreds and thousands of articles and books. In my view, the same applies to the current study, originally published in Hebrew three decades ago... One can also not remain indifferent when reading this book. M.Ben-Dov, Historian & Archeologist