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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... regarded as fierce fighters , there was no expectation of considerable profit if they were subjugated , so the conquest of Germany never became a first priority after the reign of Augustus . Even though this is obvious in principle , it ...
... regarded as representatives of the group to which they belong . They are assumed to have all the characteristics usually ascribed to the group . In any case , reducing the emphasis on the biological ingredient of racism makes it ...
... regarded as having charac- teristics over which they have no control of their own and which are determined by other factors , such as climate , geography , or hereditary factors that cannot be influenced by men themselves . In other ...
... regarded as the vehicle that should endow privileges to a specific group because of presumed inherited merit . 57 Claude Lévi - Strauss , Race et Histoire ( Paris , 1952 ) , notes that racism focuses on imaginary characteristics of ...
... regarded as forming a distinct ethnical stock . " Even if it was common in antiquity to think of peoples and tribes in terms of common descent , we should avoid doing so ourselves . This book will not , therefore , use the term race to ...