Al Zambone interviewed Erik for the October 31, 2018, episode of the Historically Thinking podcast.

Here is Zambone’s introduction to the podcast:

“Civilizations’s greatest monster–the terrible specter that haunts comfortable and prosperous societies–has always been the barbarian. That’s the creature that arrives and destroys all that comfort and prosperity, that leaves ruins behind; that forces people to question whether all that comfort and prosperity was worth it, and whether they should have been barbarians themselves.

“Today I discuss the concept of the barbarian in Greek and Roman societies with Erik Jensen, author of (helpfully enough) Barbarians in the Greek and Roman World. To define barbarians as ‘those not like us’ is to also define ‘what we are.’ So Erik and I spend a lot of time talking about what it meant to be Greek, and what it meant to be Roman. We also discuss how the impoverished and backward Greeks could view the dazzlingly rich and talented Persians as barbarians; what the Romans ever did for us; why barbarians are just so damn attractive; and why the worst barbarians are always seen as those born within civilization.”

Visit Historically Thinking to listen to or download the podcast (duration 53:59).

Mark Klobas interviewed Erik for a New Books Network podcast in May, 2018, about his upcoming book Barbarians in the Greek and Roman World.

Here is Klobas’s introduction to the podcast:

“Today the word ‘barbarian’ has a derogatory connotation for most people. Yet in the classical world it was one that was often used not as a pejorative but as a means of denoting people of different cultural backgrounds, which was regularly done in an era in which interactions with them were commonplace. Erik Jensen’s book Barbarians in the Greek and Roman World (Hackett Publishing Company, 2018) examines the concept of barbarians as understood by the Hellenic. Hellenistic, and Roman civilizations, showing how their ever-evolving use of the phrase offers us an understanding of their concepts of identity. Noting the origin of the word as a descriptor of how the Greeks interpreted foreign languages, Jensen explains how it was an early example of how the politically fractious people of the region identified the shared factors that distinguished them from others. Such distinctions were frequently relevant given the Greek presence in the Mediterranean world, which manifested itself in trade, colonization, and later in the conquests that established the Hellenistic world. By contrast the Roman interaction with others was defined by conquest from the start, which led to the development of a different criteria of which peoples were and were not regarded as outsiders. As Jensen reveals, it was the crises of the late imperial period which hardened the concept of barbarians into the negative one which we use today, one which has skewed our understanding of the ancient world as a consequence.”

Visit New Books Network to listen to or download the podcast (duration 48:45).

Preorder Barbarians in the Greek and Roman World via Hackett | via Amazon | via B&N.

For review copies, please contact Hackett directly.