The invention of racism in classical antiquity / Benjamin Isaac.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Isaac, Benjamin H.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Racism--Greece--History--To 1500.

Racism.

Racism--Rome.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (591 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey ; Oxfordshire, England : Princeton University Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

There 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. Magisterial in scope and scholarship, and engagingly written, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity further suggests that an understanding of ancient attitudes toward other peoples sheds light not only on Greco-Roman imperialism and the ideology of enslavement (and the concomitant integration or non-integration) of foreigners in those societies, but also on the disintegration of the Roman Empire and on more recent imperialism as well. The first part considers general themes in the history of discrimination; the second provides a detailed analysis of proto-racism and prejudices toward particular groups of foreigners in the Greco-Roman world. The last chapter concerns Jews in the ancient world, thus placing anti-Semitism in a broader context.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviation

Introduction

PART 1: STEREOTYPES AND PROTO-RACISM: CRITERIA FOR DIFFERENTIATION

CHAPTER 1. Superior and Inferior Peoples

CHAPTER 2. Conquest and Imperialism

CHAPTER 3. Fears and Suppression

Conclusions to Part 1, Chapters 2 and 3

PART 2: GREEK AND ROMAN ATTITUDES TOWARDS SPECIFIC GROUPS: GREEK AND ROMAN IMPERIALISM

INTRODUCTION TO PART 2

CHAPTER 4. Greeks and the East

CHAPTER 5. Roman Imperialism and the Conquest of the East

CHAPTER 6. Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Syrians

CHAPTER 7. Egyptians

CHAPTER 8. Parthia/Persia

CHAPTER 9. Roman Views of Greeks

CHAPTER 10. Mountaineers and Plainsmen

CHAPTER 11. Gauls

CHAPTER 12. Germans

CHAPTER 13.503 Jews

Conclusions to Part 2

END CONCLUSIONS

Ethnic Prejudice, Proto-Racism, and Imperialism in Antiquity

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX OF SOURCES

GENERAL INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780691116914

0691116911

9781400849567

140084956X

OCLC:

880236652