Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity
    The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity
    The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity
    Ebook561 pages19 hours

    The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity

    By Benjamin Isaac

    3/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateOct 31, 2013
    ISBN9781400849567
    The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity
    Author

    Benjamin Isaac

    Benjamin Isaac is Lessing Professor of Ancient History at the University of Tel Aviv. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the author of The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East.

    Related to The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity

    Related ebooks

    Ancient History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Listen: The Racial Contract

      May 13, 2020

      Listen: The Racial Contract
      7 min read

    • Article

      Where Do We Go From Here?

      Jun 26, 2020

      Where Do We Go From Here?
      18 min read

    • Article

      'When I Was White': At 27, Sarah Valentine Found Out Her Biological Father Was Black. A Chat About Her New Memoir

      Nov 6, 2019

      When Sarah Valentine was growing up in the mostly white, middle-class suburbs of Pittsburgh during the 1980s, she assumed her experience was just like that of her peers. She embraced the traditions of her Irish and Italian heritage, did well in sport

      5 min read

    • Article

      Untangling Slavery’s Roots: The Yearslong Search For ‘Angela’

      May 1, 2019

      Jamestown archaeologists are searching for “Angela.” Four hundred years ago, she became the first known person sold into slavery in the 13 colonies.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Additional Books And Articles

      Jun 15, 2021

      • Darnell, John Coleman. Egypt and the Deserts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. • Piccione, Peter. “Mehen Mysteries, and Resurrection from the Coiled Serpent,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 27 (1990): 43-52. • Piccione

      1 min read

    • Article

      Warfare In The Age Of Homer

      Nov 23, 2021

      By Josho Brouwers Karwansaray Publishers, 2017 ISBN: 978-9490258078 An overview of Greek warfare from the Mycenaean Bronze Age down to the Persian Wars, this volume covers (and acts as an introduction to) the period of Homeric warfare (including the

      2 min read

    • Article

      Sectarian Scrolls?

      Apr 7, 2023

      Sectarian Scrolls?
      7 min read

    • Article

      Preliminaries

      Aug 22, 2022

      Preliminaries
      6 min read

    • Article

      The New science Of History

      Mar 1, 2024

      The New science Of History
      16 min read

    • Article

      Readings: The Middle Kingdom

      Oct 19, 2021

      By Barry Kemp Routledge, 2018 ISBN: 978-0415827263 This updated edition seeks to identify what gave ancient Egypt its distinctive and enduring characteristics. Kemp explores the ideas and experience of the Egyptian world using texts as well as art an

      2 min read

    • Article

      Editorial - The Mystery Of The Celts…

      Apr 20, 2021

      There is perhaps no term that has caused more confusion, stereotyping, or mythmaking than the word ‘Celtic’. What or who falls under the mysterious umbrella of ‘Celt’? Is this the name of a unified group of people or disparate tribes with shared cult

      7 min read

    • Article

      Treasures of Ancient Egypt

      May 28, 2021

      ANCIENT EGYPT PART 2 OF 2 Social sciences FOR more than 3 000 years the Ancient Egyptian civilisation flourished on the banks of the Nile River in northeast Africa. But after Egypt was conquered – first by the Greeks, then the Romans and eventually t

      4 min read

    • Article

      Readings: Colonization

      Feb 14, 2022

      By John BoardmanThames and Hudson, 1980ISBN: 978-0500281093 A masterly summary of the spread of Greek civilization across the Mediterranean world in the pre-classical era. This book details one of the most important periods of European history, descr

      2 min read

    • Article

      Archæology

      Dec 1, 2022

      Archæology
      6 min read

    • Article

      Becoming Lawrence Of Arabia

      Oct 19, 2021

      Becoming Lawrence Of Arabia
      3 min read

    • Article

      Preliminaries

      Dec 14, 2021

      Archaeologists working on the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway project in England have uncovered a set of rare Roman statue busts, which may have been part of an impressive mausoleum. In the final stages of the excavation at the site of the old St Mary’s N

      6 min read

    • Article

      Book Reviews

      Oct 19, 2021

      By Amber Gartrell ISBN: 978-1108477550 Cambridge University Press (2021) – $99.99 www.cambridge.org Once upon a time there were two brothers. The Greeks knew them as the Dioskouroi, the Romans as the Dioscuri. Sons of Leda, queen of Sparta, they had

      5 min read

    • Article

      Classical Corner

      Jan 28, 2021

      Classical Corner
      5 min read

    • Article

      Readings: The Celtic World

      Apr 20, 2021

      By John R. Collis Tempus Publishing, 2003 ISBN: 978-0752429137 Collis looks at the use of the term ‘Celtic’ – often bandied about without much thought as to what it really means. This book looks at what ‘Celtic’ means and at the relationship between

      2 min read

    • Article

      Ancient World

      Dec 21, 2023

      Ancient World
      7 min read

    • Article

      World Of The Griffin Warrior

      Aug 15, 2019

      World Of The Griffin Warrior
      10 min read

    • Article

      Readings: Ancient Luxury

      Aug 4, 2023

      By Nick Fisher and Hans van Wees The Classical Press of Wales, 2011 ISBN: 978-1905125487 The Greeks are described as having a ‘culture of competition', but competition and competitive displays are by no means restricted to them. This volume contains

      2 min read

    • Article

      Uncovering Pylos

      Apr 9, 2022

      Uncovering Pylos
      1 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity

    3/5

    5 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      As a historian, Benjamin Isaac is a worthy successor to Zecharia Sitchin; all that was missing was the Annunaki connection.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I just paid $32 American, for The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity by Benjamin Isaac. The cover alone is worth the price. Here is the description found on the back of the book."Cover illustration: Caeretan black-figure hydria, ca. 510 BC Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Drawing: A. Furtwiingler & K. Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei; Auswahl hervorragender Vasenbilder (Munchen, 1904), PI. 51. The image shows the Greek hero Heracles before the altar on which the Egyptian king Busiris tried to sacrifice him like other strangers before him. Heracles runs amuck, dispatches Busiris, tramples and flings around his servants, all clearly recognizable as Egyptians." I shouldn't have to had waited this long to find out that Heracles was a black super hero before he became a Greek god.

    Book preview

    The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity - Benjamin Isaac

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1