PDF Implicit Understandings: Observing; Reporting and Reflecting on the Encounters between Europeans and Other Peoples in the Early Modern Era (Studies in Comparative Early Modern History) by From Brand: Cambridge University Press in History

Description

This study; unique of its kind; asks how slavery was viewed by the leading spokesmen of Greece and Rome. There was no movement for abolition in these societies; or a vigorous debate; such as occurred in antebellum America; but this does not imply that slavery was accepted without question. This book draws on a wide range of sources; pagan; Jewish and Christian; over ten centuries; to challenge the common assumption of passive acquiescence in slavery; and the associated view that; Aristotle apart; there was no systematic thought on slavery. The work contains both a typology of attitudes to slavery ranging from critiques to justifications; and paired case studies of leading theorists of slavery; Aristotle and the Stoics; Philo and Paul; Ambrose and Augustine.