UID:
edocfu_9959245378502883
Format:
1 online resource (591 p.)
Edition:
Course Book
ISBN:
0-691-11691-1
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1-4008-4956-X
Content:
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.
Note:
Description based upon print version of record.
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Frontmatter --
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Contents --
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Acknowledgments --
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Abbreviation --
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Introduction --
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PART 1: STEREOTYPES AND PROTO-RACISM: CRITERIA FOR DIFFERENTIATION --
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CHAPTER 1. Superior and Inferior Peoples --
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CHAPTER 2. Conquest and Imperialism --
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CHAPTER 3. Fears and Suppression --
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Conclusions to Part 1, Chapters 2 and 3 --
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PART 2: GREEK AND ROMAN ATTITUDES TOWARDS SPECIFIC GROUPS: GREEK AND ROMAN IMPERIALISM --
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INTRODUCTION TO PART 2 --
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CHAPTER 4. Greeks and the East --
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CHAPTER 5. Roman Imperialism and the Conquest of the East --
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CHAPTER 6. Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Syrians --
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CHAPTER 7. Egyptians --
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CHAPTER 8. Parthia/Persia --
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CHAPTER 9. Roman Views of Greeks --
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CHAPTER 10. Mountaineers and Plainsmen --
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CHAPTER 11. Gauls --
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CHAPTER 12. Germans --
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CHAPTER 13.503 Jews --
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Conclusions to Part 2 --
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END CONCLUSIONS --
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Ethnic Prejudice, Proto-Racism, and Imperialism in Antiquity --
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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY --
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INDEX OF SOURCES --
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GENERAL INDEX
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Issued also in print.
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English
Additional Edition:
ISBN 0-691-12598-8
Additional Edition:
ISBN 1-306-06349-3
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1515/9781400849567
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