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. |
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... religion , occupa- tion , modes of life and conflict , and language . Emphasis and values may change over time , but we are always concerned with the ways one group saw another . It is not my intention to consider the economic , legal ...
... religion to the social system and succeeded in establishing myths which stated or implied that the division of society into separate categories and descent was divinely ordained [ . . . ] These are early forms of relationships between ...
... religion , real and nonexistent differences . In its interpretation it always distorts the facts for its own purposes , for its aim is always to prove that the other group is inferior and the racist superior , and that these qualities ...
... religion , the inhabitants of a specific region of a country , or any other group of people assumed to have something in common . The major difference between racism and ethnic and other group prejudices is that such prejudices do not ...
... religious groups ( the Christian or Jewish race ) , groups with one or more physical features in common , such as skin ... religion when they share a common faith , organized or not . Furthermore , it is sociologically significant when ...