What if the so-called Age of Discovery was really the dawn of domination?

In Barbaric Others, Zia Sardar, Ashis Nandy, and Merryl Wyn Davies revisit Christopher Columbus’s fabled voyage and reveal it as more than a tale of courage or conquest. Columbus, they argue, was not a lone hero or villain but a man shaped by his era—a moment when Europe’s encounter with other civilizations could have fostered dialogue, yet instead set the stage for centuries of exploitation.

Tracing the West’s tendency to define others as barbarians, infidels, or savages, the book exposes how this mindset became the foundation of colonialism, racism, and cultural supremacy. From ancient Greece to the modern world, the authors chart a provocative intellectual history of how fear and prejudice have distorted human relationships across cultures.

Brilliantly argued and powerfully relevant, this is a vital re-examination of the myths that continue to shape the Western imagination.