The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity

by Isaac, Benjamin

• ISBN13: 9780691125985
• ISBN10: 0691125988
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-02-13
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

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 Antiquityfurther 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.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
List Of Abbreviations	xiii
Introduction	1	(52)
PART 1: STEREOTYPES AND PROTO-RACISM: CRITERIA FOR DIFFERENTIATION	53	(200)
Superior and Inferior Peoples	55	(114)
Conquest and Imperialism	169	(56)
Fears and Suppression	225	(28)
Conclusions to Part 1, Chapters 2 and 3	248	(5)
PART 2: GREEK AND ROMAN ATTITUDES TOWARDS SPECIFIC GROUPS: GREEK AND ROMAN IMPERIALISM	253	(248)
Introduction To Part 2	255	(2)
Greeks and the East	257	(47)
Roman Imperialism and the Conquest of the East	304	(20)
Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Syrians	324	(28)
Egyptians	352	(19)
Parthia/Persia	371	(10)
Roman Views of Greeks	381	(25)
Mountaineers and Plainsmen	406	(5)
Gauls	411	(16)
Germans	427	(13)
Jews	440	(61)
Conclusions to Part 2	492	(9)
END CONCLUSIONS	501	(16)
Ethnic Prejudice, Proto-Racism, and Imperialism in Antiquity	503	(14)
Selected Bibliography	517	(24)
Index of Sources	541	(12)
General Index	553