The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity by Benjamin Isaac (PDF)

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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.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “One of Choice’s Outstanding Academic Titles for 2004″”This is a big book on an important subject.” ― Choice”The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity pores over substantial textual evidence to confirm that both the ancient Greeks and Romans possessed nationalistic tendencies. . . . Isaac’s book is seriously academic and will long remain an essential standard tool for debate.”—Sean Kingsley, Times Higher Education Supplement”[An] important book. . . . [A]nyone concerned with racism, and more generally with the moral complexity of our civilization, will be profoundly educated by Isaac’s magisterial and ethically lucid study.”—Paula Fredriksen, The New Republic”The author’s magisterial and comprehensive command of the sources and the modern academic literature lends his thesis authority. He thoughtfully summarizes his arguments and conclusions from time to time. His line of thought is clear and his language is straightforward.”—Ralph Amelan, The Jerusalem Post”The principal aim of this massive, heavily documented study . . . is to establish that racism, like so many other articles of European mental furniture, was first given shape and substance by the fifth-century Greeks. . . . [Benjamin] Isaac’s accessible, ground-breaking study is a timely and important work.”—Margaret H. Williams, Journal of Jewish Studies”This is a hugely learned and provocative book. . . . Benjamin Isaac is a classical scholar, and his experience of twentieth-century anti-Semitism has both made him uniquely alive to his topic, and led him to look for the ‘roots’ of one particular type of racism in classical antiquity.”—Christopher Jones, Scripta Classica Israelica”This is the first serious scholarly work to confront the problem of race and racism in Greco-Roman antiquity. . . . [Benjamin] Issac has deflated once and for all any easy suppositions about the modern origins of one of humankind’s bitterest legacies.”—Brent D. Shaw, Journal of World History”The 563 pages of this book represent an academic tour-de-force, showing vast knowledge of ancient sources from Herodotus to late antiquity, and an equally impressive mastery of early modern scholarship from the sixteenth century onwards, drawing out many links between ancient and modern thinking.”—David Noy, Journal of the Classical Association of Canada”The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity is a compelling work that has been written with so much clarity, precision and erudition that it is almost impossible not to accept the author’s views. It is also one of those books that will definitely change the way we look at the ancient world, a world that invented not only ‘logos’, democracy and philosophy, but also the art of using pseudo-scientific arguments in order to justify the worst ways of dealing with other men. Last but not least, Isaac establishes that considering racial discrimination in its earliest forms is a good way of gaining ‘a better understanding of their contemporary forms,’ since such prejudices continue to be at the root of most hatreds (and most wars) that are devastating today’s world. For these reasons, this book is essential for anyone interested in the topic of racism.”—Christian Delacampagne, Patterns of Prejudice Review “A revolutionary work of immense relevance to the tensions of our contemporary globalized society. Enormous in scope, erudition, and importance, it is lucidly written and can easily be appreciated by any historically minded reader.”―Glen W. Bowersock, Institute for Advanced Study”Benjamin Isaac’s treatment of this complex problem is the first comprehensive, intelligible, and truly magisterial one of which I am aware. The book will be an invaluable source of information, discussion, and interpretation for any person (scholar or layman) interested in any aspect of the problem of ethnic identity, whether in antiquity or in modern times.”―Martin Ostwald, Swarthmore College and University of Pennsylvania”The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity is by far the most sweeping and all-encompassing study of stereotypes and hostile portrayals by Greeks and Romans of other peoples that has yet been written. Isaac details the classical world’s biased conceptualizations of Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Syrians, Egyptians, Persians, Gauls, Germans, and Jews. As Isaac shows, the diverse images constructed at that time of genetic inferiority, of environmental and geographic influence, of descent and lineage, and propagation of fear of the alien have had an enduring impact on thinkers and public figures in Europe and the United States even up to the present time.”―Erich S. Gruen, Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics, University of California, Berkeley From the Back Cover “A revolutionary work of immense relevance to the tensions of our contemporary globalized society. Enormous in scope, erudition, and importance, it is lucidly written and can easily be appreciated by any historically minded reader.”–Glen W. Bowersock, Institute for Advanced Study”Benjamin Isaac’s treatment of this complex problem is the first comprehensive, intelligible, and truly magisterial one of which I am aware. The book will be an invaluable source of information, discussion, and interpretation for any person (scholar or layman) interested in any aspect of the problem of ethnic identity, whether in antiquity or in modern times.”–Martin Ostwald, Swarthmore College and University of Pennsylvania”The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity is by far the most sweeping and all-encompassing study of stereotypes and hostile portrayals by Greeks and Romans of other peoples that has yet been written. Isaac details the classical world’s biased conceptualizations of Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Syrians, Egyptians, Persians, Gauls, Germans, and Jews. As Isaac shows, the diverse images constructed at that time of genetic inferiority, of environmental and geographic influence, of descent and lineage, and propagation of fear of the alien have had an enduring impact on thinkers and public figures in Europe and the United States even up to the present time.”–Erich S. Gruen, Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics, University of California, Berkeley About the Author 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. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is an exceptionally stimulating book. The level of erudition on display — the sheer range and volume of material that Isaac has subjected to analysis — is staggering. Though there is some repetition, Isaac’s style is clear and his conclusions are forcefully argued. He helpfully prints most of the ancient sources in the original, so that those with even a smattering of Latin and Greek can see how he is reading his evidence.Three features made the book a success. The first is isaac’s effort to articulate a definition of racism to apply to the ancient world. While one may quibble with his definition, it is consistently thought-provoking; for me, this alone was worth the price of admission. The second is Isaac’s tracing of “proto-racist” thought developed in antiquity as it was picked up by early modern and enlightenment thinkers. Indeed, one wonders if there is another book to be written spelling out the transmission of these ideas to the modern era. The third is Isaac’s treatment of the interplay between proto-racism and ancient imperialism. He provides a fascinating new perspective on imperialism that can usefully be considered alongside such recent (and very different) contributions as Susan Mattern’s “Rome and the Enemy” (Berkeley, 1999).Highly recommended.

⭐The author is truly a genius. The writing is very densely populated with information. This is not an easy read for someone casually interested in racism. However, I found the book to be an incredible resource and highly recommend it for the serious academic reader. This book is the authority on the topic in my opinion.

⭐This title is a bit of a bookish version of clickbait, for the book under that title does not address what moderns understand as “racism” at all. As stated by James Dee in Byrn Mawr Classical Review, “Alert readers will have noticed the absence of any chapter on “blacks” or “Africans,” however those terms might be defined. Isaac refers instead to the well-known works of Frank Snowden, Lloyd Thompson, and others, though one would have welcomed the application of his incisive intelligence to this often bitterly-disputed realm.” Having read this book I can verify this–the “racism” Isaac contends to have been invented in the classical world did not focus on blacks (or even on skin color at all), as the aforementioned classicists have amply demonstrated in their seminal works on the subject. (Thompson’s “Romans and Blacks” and Snowden’s “Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience” Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks”. Also recommended is “Begrimed and Black” by theologian Robert E. Hood) What’s left for Issac is simply cultural prejudice, which he casts as “proto-racism”. OK. But to me that is a very fraught linkage; white Romans describing white Gauls as “good goat herders” is hardly on the same level as literally demonizing an entire group of people based on the color of their skin alone. No, that task would be left to Fortunatianus, Bishop of Aquileia. His mid-fourth century work, later referenced by Jerome in composing the Vulgate Bible, is the very first example from antiquity linking dark skin color to innate evil. Therein, Fortunatianus declares the “dark men of Ethiopia” to be so by virtue of being “stained by sin”–and goes on to condemn the Jews as also, but figuratively, so stained by sin. Thus the linkage of dark skin color to sin was first introduced–which tragically persisted throughout the subsequent centuries of Christendom, even to the present day.

⭐The book is excellent. I managed to see a copy, and immediately thought it was a title I should own. Thus it is all the more unfortunate that the prices for Kindle and print editions are so high as to be offensive. If the price was reasonable, I would even consider adopting this volume for one of the classes I will be teaching. As it stands, I must content myself with an interlibrary loan copy, as it is too costly for even a faculty purse! Does anyone agree?

⭐While well written, it does NOT show that modern racism was invented in Classical Antiquity (because, put very plainly, it wasn’t). In fact the book gives up on even trying to demonstrate this, instead trying to cast the cultural chauvinism of the Greeks and the Romans as a predecessor to modern racism. But importantly, this cultural chauvinism did NOT involve any racial or pseudo-racial component (and the Greeks were far from the first cultural chauvinists; a thousand years of pre-Greek cultures can attest to that). As Frank Snowden has very convincingly shown, there WERE no classical conceptions of race, and skin color wasn’t deemed any more significant than hair color or eye color. It just doesn’t make sense to try to import the horrors of the last 500+ years of racist ideology, with all of its abhorrent, and eventually pseudoscientific, justifications for slavery, genocide, and colonialism into an era where nothing like it could even be conceptualized. Trying to pin racism to pre-modern cultures threatens to cover up the horrifying, insidious rise of racism in the early modern era and the people who were responsible for it.

⭐Although Isaac’s argument has been debated and criticised, still a good introduction to whether or not racism was present in late antiquity and what form it took.

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