The Invention of Humanity: Equality and Cultural Difference in World History

Siep Stuurman

ISBN 10: 0674971965 / ISBN 13: 9780674971967

Published by Harvard University Press, 2017

For much of history, strangers were seen as barbarians, seldom as fellow human beings. The notion of common humanity had to be invented. Drawing on global thinkers, Siep Stuurman traces ideas of equality and difference across continents and civilizations, from antiquity to present-day debates about human rights and the clash of civilizations." Num Pages: 672 pages. BIC Classification: HBG. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 168 x 244 x 52. Weight in Grams: 1100. . 2017. Hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9780674971967

Synopsis:

For much of history, strangers were routinely classified as barbarians and inferiors, seldom as fellow human beings. The notion of a common humanity was counterintuitive and thus had to be invented. Siep Stuurman traces evolving ideas of human equality and difference across continents and civilizations from ancient times to the present.

Despite humans’ deeply ingrained bias against strangers, migration and cultural blending have shaped human experience from the earliest times. As travelers crossed frontiers and came into contact with unfamiliar peoples and customs, frontier experiences generated not only hostility but also empathy and understanding. Empires sought to civilize their “barbarians,” but in all historical eras critics of empire were able to imagine how the subjected peoples made short shrift of imperial arrogance.

Drawing on the views of a global mix of thinkers―Homer, Confucius, Herodotus, the medieval Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun, the Haitian writer Antenor Firmin, the Filipino nationalist Jose Rizal, and more―The Invention of Humanity surveys the great civilizational frontiers of history, from the interaction of nomadic and sedentary societies in ancient Eurasia and Africa, to Europeans’ first encounters with the indigenous peoples of the New World, to the Enlightenment invention of universal “modern equality.” Against a backdrop of two millennia of thinking about common humanity and equality, Stuurman concludes with a discussion of present-day debates about human rights and the “clash of civilizations.”

About the Author: Siep Stuurman is Emeritus Professor of the History of Ideas at Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Invention of Humanity: Equality and ...
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication Date: 2017
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: New