Racisms: From the Crusades to the Twentieth Century

Four years ago I published a review in this journal of a book on The Origins of Racism in the West.(1) I would like to begin the analysis of the volume by Bethencourt in the same way in which I began my piece on The Origins of Racism in the West, i.e. by quoting a statement I made in a book which I published at the beginning of my career: ‘All minorities in all societies in all historical periods have endured hostility from the government and the majority populations in the countries in which they live’.(2) This seemed to some scholars at the time a bold and unsubstantiated statement. The vast amount of research I have carried out over the last 20 years, admittedly concentrating (but not exclusively focusing) upon the 19th and 20th centuries, has confirmed my initial belief. The volume which I reviewed for this journal four years ago, with contributions from scholars expert in specific fields and time spans, further supported my findings, by placing the origins of racial prejudice in European classical antiquity, but also coming to the conclusion (especially through an essay by David Nirenberg) that a significant change occurred as a result of the racialization of Spanish blood in the late medieval period, which Bethencourt, essentially an Iberian and, more specifically, a Portuguese specialist, accepts and stresses.