Suchergebnisse

Traces the history of the category of race in history & historiography from ancient Egypt to the present. It is observed that the extreme ethnic heterogeneity & ethnocentrism of ancient Egypt began to change around 500 BC, when darker pigmentation became associated with ugliness & slavery. At this point, blackness increasingly became associated with Muslims, who were generally reviled in the Christian world. Modern racism is described as beginning from the first 15th-century contact between Europeans & Africans in the context of the system of slavery. Modern historiography since the 17th century is shown to have been conditioned by the context of slavery & racism to exclude Africans & African history from the pantheon of great historical events. It is concluded that contemporary historians would do well to focus on the interaction & mixture of the races rather than their isolation if they are to develop responsible & accurate historical accounts of the past & present. D. M. Smith