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"While being an immigrant does carry a stigma in today’s US, that stigma is minimal (compared to Europe) "

Are immigrants viewed much more negatively in Europe than in the US?

I've never been to the US, but in Canada and the Australia I found the prevalence of anti immigrant views similar to similar to or greater than in the UK (where I'm from) and I get the impression that the US is has more anti immigrant feelings than Canada.

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This is a cool review but perhaps Beard is an outlier regarding Roman slavery. I remember Elaine Pagels, who studied ancient Christianity, that the Roman Empire was 3/4 slave, not 3/4 free. And the Roman Empire went for a thousand years so what periods to rough proportions had slavery as a percentage of the population? And wasn't there a lot of "porto-feudalism" by the end of the Roman Empire. Are those folks counted as free? They kinda are but kinda are not...

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Very good points. I do not know the answer, but I think that beginning with the 4th century, we are talking about serfdom much more than slavery. What % were slaves+freemen at the Roman peak is, I think, very difficult to figure out.

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I think you are right. By the end of the Western Roman Empire, I think you are seeing proto--serfdom/feudalism. I would be curious too how the social structures were different and similar between late Roman West/Medieval period compared to the late Greek East/Byzantium period.

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