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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... sense ; Catherine Morgan , “ Ethne , Ethnicity , and Early Greek States , ca. 1200– 480 B.C .: An Archaeological Perspective , " in Malkin ( ed . ) , Ancient Perceptions ( 2001 ) , 75–112 . historians and classicists . It is my hope ...
... sense then that this would lead where we now know it to have led . The existence of racism in the United States did not prevent the abolition of slavery and the gradual emancipation of the blacks in that country . I assume therefore ...
... sense . He defines races as varieties of the species whose characters have become hereditary as a result of the continuous actions of the same causes that produce individual differences , but he was not very consistent in his usage ...
... sense in which it is used by the racist does not exist . If , however , I adopt a definition of race which seems more or less reasonable or rational , then it is impossible to trace patterns of racism , which are by definition ...
... sense , since all racism is held to be focused on biological differences . Memmi later revised his definition : " Racism is the valuation , generalized and definitive , of differences , real or imaginary , to the 43 Frederickson's ...