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Rating: 
Summary: Snowden presents an extremely credible view of ancient race
Review: Let's get it straight. Dr. Frank Snowden knows what he is talking about. Snowden offers solid evidence from antiquity that does show "racism" based on skin color was in fact not a major issue of ancient times. While it is true that slavery did exist from antiquity, it was based on conquest, and not skin color or race from a biological superiority/inferiority perspective. Dr. Snowden is not writing a piece of revisionist history or unsupported political Afro-centrism, he is presenting findings of honest and credible research. This is an excellent book that any intelligent person who has serious questions about race and racism in history should read. One possible conclusion you may arrive at is that racism is evidently a much more recent social (and possibly even theological) construction in history and definitely not one that originated in antiquity. I highly recommend "Before Color Prejudice".
Rating:
Summary: Snowden presents an extremely credible view of ancient race
Review: Let's get it straight. Dr. Frank Snowden knows what he is talking about. Snowden offers solid evidence from antiquity that does show "racism" based on skin color was in fact not a major issue of ancient times. While it is true that slavery did exist from antiquity, it was based on conquest, and not skin color or race from a biological superiority/inferiority perspective. Dr. Snowden is not writing a piece of revisionist history or unsupported political Afro-centrism, he is presenting findings of honest and credible research. This is an excellent book that any intelligent person who has serious questions about race and racism in history should read. One possible conclusion you may arrive at is that racism is evidently a much more recent social (and possibly even theological) construction in history and definitely not one that originated in antiquity. I highly recommend "Before Color Prejudice".
Rating:
Summary: Snowden presents an extremely credible view of ancient race
Review: Let's get it straight. Dr. Frank Snowden knows what he is talking about. Snowden offers solid evidence from antiquity that does show "racism" based on skin color was in fact not a major issue of ancient times. While it is true that slavery did exist from antiquity, it was based on conquest, and not skin color or race from a biological superiority/inferiority perspective. Dr. Snowden is not writing a piece of revisionist history or unsupported political Afro-centrism, he is presenting findings of honest and credible research. This is an excellent book that any intelligent person who has serious questions about race and racism in history should read. One possible conclusion you may arrive at is that racism is evidently a much more recent social (and possibly even theological) construction in history and definitely not one that originated in antiquity. I highly recommend "Before Color Prejudice".
Rating: 
Summary: dream world
Review: the book was dissapointing because the author cant seem to accept the fact that prejudice is natural so he tries to convince us that since there was a time when there was no prejudice, then we can get rid of it. The evidence he presents for this view is weak since the illustrations he used only shows caricatures of blacks.Another thing is,he falls into the same old racist definition of the egytians as white when it seems even to a moron that they appear to be mulatto than anything else.the only good thing about the book is what i learned about n.african blacks in antiquity.Racism has always been here and will always be here.The aauthor has not convinced me that the ancient greeks or romans had no clor prejudice,in fact he has convinced me of just the opposite.
Rating:
Summary: dream world
Review: The book was dissapointing because the author cant seem to accept the fact that prejudice is natural so he tries to convince us that since there was a time when there was no prejudice, we can get rid of it. The evidence he presents for this view is weak since the illustrations he used only shows caricatures of blacks.Another thing is,he falls into the same old racist definition of the egytians as white when it seems even to a moron that they appear more mulatto than anything else.the only good thing about the book is what i learned about n.african blacks in antiquity.Racism has always been here and will always be here.The aauthor has not convinced me that the ancient greeks or romans had no color prejudice,in fact he has convinced me of just the opposite.
Rating: 
Summary: Provocative reading!
Review: The title says it in a nutshell. It tells of a time that I, and am sure many others, are unaware of. Centering mainly around the centuries before and after Christ it shows that racism was not an inherited trait of whites but something that evolved over time. It describes the ageless meaning behind racism and how it is a way for one to hold one group of people down in order to uplift you and whatever group you belong to. This book does not paint the broad brush of generalizing all whites as prejudice, but that a substantial number of whites became prejudice over time so that such things as: black slavery lasting over 500 years while no other ethnic group was so wholley enslaved. Or how the world had designated at one time that regardless of where the black man was at he was a slave until proven otherwise. And how the system of Jim Crow and its brother Apartheid existed for such a lengthy period of time before their was finally enough public resentment to have these systems overturned. The book also mention the role of Africans in the Bible.
Rating:
Summary: A very useful perspective
Review: This text is a wonderful antidote to the present-mindedness which marks much of our current discussion of race and race relations. Snowden examined the ancient Mediterranean world--a highly pluralistic, interracial world--to learn how significant the concept of race was at that time. His compelling and creative use of human representations in art, and of the stories that ancient people told about eachother show that race--while seemingly all-important today--was insignificant to them. He identifies (among others) Egyptian, Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman art in which "black" and "white" people stand side-by-side as soldiers, military officers, political rulers, spouses, athletes, guests at feasts, mythic figures, etc. While ancients recognized the physical differences which we use as racial identifiers, they did not seem to draw the same invidious distinctions or make the same social uses of race which Europeans around the world have made over the past 500 years. I regularly refer to his findings in 2-3 of my college courses to raise questions about the naturalness and inevitability of our current racial assumptions. The many photographs included in the text make it even more valuable, by allowing us to draw our own conclusions from his graphic evidence. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: A very useful perspective
Review: This text is a wonderful antidote to the present-mindedness which marks much of our current discussion of race and race relations. Snowden examined the ancient Mediterranean world--a highly pluralistic, interracial world--to learn how significant the concept of race was at that time. His compelling and creative use of human representations in art, and of the stories that ancient people told about eachother show that race--while seemingly all-important today--was insignificant to them. He identifies (among others) Egyptian, Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman art in which "black" and "white" people stand side-by-side as soldiers, military officers, political rulers, spouses, athletes, guests at feasts, mythic figures, etc. While ancients recognized the physical differences which we use as racial identifiers, they did not seem to draw the same invidious distinctions or make the same social uses of race which Europeans around the world have made over the past 500 years. I regularly refer to his findings in 2-3 of my college courses to raise questions about the naturalness and inevitability of our current racial assumptions. The many photographs included in the text make it even more valuable, by allowing us to draw our own conclusions from his graphic evidence. I highly recommend this book.
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