Jun 8, 2012
Wonderful, thought provoking scholarship. Not easy reading, exactly. After all, this is sociology, ethnology, intellectual history, anthropology, etc. But Painter has delineated concepts so carefully and written so gracefully and clearly that The History of White People is quite accessible. It is a good, "expand-your-mind" kind of read.
According to Dr. Painter, in the ancient world there was no concept of race. Skin color indicated nothing about a person's worth. After all, the classical and known world around the Mediterranean, down the Nile and through Persia to India included every