The word barbarian is derived from the Greek term 'barbaroi' - or one who cannot speak Greek. As the Greeks believed that language was the tool of reason, non-Greek speakers, therefore, were considered devoid of the facility to reason or to act according to logic. This concept of barbarism in turn shaped the early anthropological observations of Columbus and the first European visitors to the Americas. Barbaric Others offers a unique perspective on an adversaril worldview that has allowed the West to see other peoples as barbarians, infidels, env ‘savages’. In exposing the convenient myopia, the authors provide a succint and shameful history of the racism and xenophobia that have shaped western thought form ancient Greece to the present day.
Back to top
