> there is a new revisionist history of the Western world that is being pushed, one that holds a shared "white" or "European" identity as paramount
I don't think it's either new or revisionist -- the vast majority of European have been white, going back millenia.
And very many Europeans, particularly educated ones, have considered themselves as European, both in geographical terms, and in civilisational terms -- e.g. they thought of them selves as Romans, or as part of Christendom, or as part of the West.
> it isn't really up for debate whether there were Roman soldiers and civilians in Britain who came from the far reaches of the Empire and beyond. Yes, including from Africa.
Indeed so.
> Whether we would have looked at these people and said they were "black" is, as Dr. Beard explains, pretty unanswerable
In terms of what they looked like, most Romans were of Mediterranean appearance.
I don't think it's either new or revisionist -- the vast majority of European have been white, going back millenia.
And very many Europeans, particularly educated ones, have considered themselves as European, both in geographical terms, and in civilisational terms -- e.g. they thought of them selves as Romans, or as part of Christendom, or as part of the West.
> it isn't really up for debate whether there were Roman soldiers and civilians in Britain who came from the far reaches of the Empire and beyond. Yes, including from Africa.
Indeed so.
> Whether we would have looked at these people and said they were "black" is, as Dr. Beard explains, pretty unanswerable
In terms of what they looked like, most Romans were of Mediterranean appearance.