The Invention of Racism in Classical AntiquityThere was racism in the ancient world, after all. This groundbreaking book refutes the common belief that the ancient Greeks and Romans harbored "ethnic and cultural," but not racial, prejudice. It does so by comprehensively tracing the intellectual origins of racism back to classical antiquity. Benjamin Isaac's systematic analysis of ancient social prejudices and stereotypes reveals that some of those represent prototypes of racism--or proto-racism--which in turn inspired the early modern authors who developed the more familiar racist ideas. He considers the literature from classical Greece to late antiquity in a quest for the various forms of the discriminatory stereotypes and social hatred that have played such an important role in recent history and continue to do so in modern society. |
From inside the book
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... foreign nations , such as Greek ideas of Persia , and opinions about peoples incorporated into the Roman Empire , such as Roman ideas about Greeks . This is all the more necessary because so many foreign nations were incorporated into ...
... foreign peoples encountered in ancient literature go together with imperialist behavior . It is not my claim that attitudes steer policy , drive conquest , or even determine the treatment of subject peoples , their integration , or ...
... foreign nations , for example , Greek ideas of Persia , and opinions about peoples incorporated into the Roman Empire , for example , Roman ideas of Greeks . This is all the more necessary because so many foreign nations became subjects ...
... foreign peoples and imperialist or expansionist ideologies in Greece and Rome . As already observed , this is not a systematic analysis of ancient imperialism . It is an attempt to trace the views held by Greeks and Romans of their ...
... foreign presence , through expulsions or restrictive mea- sures . More specifically , a strong tendency to regard contact between peoples as damaging in general can be found both in Greek and in Roman literature and is frequently ...