The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece...

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The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate

How white nationalist movements draw on ancient Greece and Rome to construct historical justifications for modern extremist beliefs

The growing presence of white nationalist movements in the United States has brought renewed attention to the ways extremist groups use symbols and ideas from the ancient world to promote their agendas. From organizations adopting images of Greek temples to activists displaying Spartan-inspired imagery during political violence, references to Greco-Roman history have become part of the visual and ideological language of modern white nationalism.

For many people, ancient Greece and Rome represent the foundations of democracy, philosophy, art, and intellectual achievement. Yet, as Curtis Dozier explores in this compelling examination, the ancient world also contained social hierarchies, exclusionary practices, conquest, and ideas about identity that can be manipulated to support modern extremist narratives. Some influential ancient writers and thinkers expressed beliefs about culture, ethnicity, and power that white supremacists attempt to reinterpret as support for their own political goals.

Blending an introduction to contemporary white nationalist ideology with an investigation into ancient attitudes toward race, outsiders, and belonging, this book also examines the complicated relationship between the study of history and its political uses. It reveals how extremist intellectuals selectively engage with the past—not through ignorance, but through a deliberate effort to reshape historical narratives for modern purposes.

By uncovering the connections between ancient sources and present-day propaganda, this thought-provoking work demonstrates how history can be distorted into a tool for exclusion, division, and political extremism.