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

by Curtis Dozier

How white nationalist thought leaders use ancient Greece and Rome to claim historical precedent for their violent and oppressive politics
 
It is difficult to ignore the resurgence of white nationalist movements in the United States, many of which employ symbols and slogans from Greco-Roman antiquity. A long-established neo-Nazi website incorporates an image of the Parthenon into its logo, and rioters wore Spartan helmets in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. These juxtapositions may appear incongruous to people who associate the ancient world with enlightened political ideals and sophisticated philosophical inquiry. But, as Curtis Dozier points out in this thought-provoking book, it’s hard to imagine a historical period better suited to rhetorical use by white nationalists. Indeed, some of the most widely admired voices from ancient literature and philosophy endorsed ideas that modern white supremacists promote, and the social and political realities of the ancient world provide models for political systems that white supremacists would like to establish today.
 
Part introduction to contemporary white nationalist thought, part exploration of ancient racism and xenophobia, and part intellectual history of the political entanglements of academic study of the past, this book reveals that contemporary white nationalist intellectuals know much more about history than many people assume—and they deploy this knowledge with disturbing success.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Race

288 pages, Hardcover

Published January 6, 2026

Reviews

[Bungaku Shoujo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviews of this book will probably call it “timely”. It certainly isn’t a fun read, but it wasn’t supposed to be. Dozier is one of many public intellectuals who is concerned with how the far-right use ancient Greece and Rome to support their beliefs, and while one could write a book (and some have) about how they do so for homophobia and misogyny, Dozier restricts himself to white nationalism, although obviously touches on other prejudices when they intersect.

Dozier mostly focuses on America, but also discusses white nationalist movements in places like Finland and Greece. He covers material ranging from Tweets to organized conferences, which is an appreciated expansion from his website Pharos, which sometimes made it look like obscure blog posts were causing the downfall of civic virtue. He raises important questions and makes the startling point that the basic idea behind white nationalist appropriations of antiquity– the idea that antiquity is admirable and foundational to the modern world– is deeply ingrained into Western culture, and so employing it in a hate movement makes it looks more natural and comfortable. That white nationalists seek legitimization by employing the classical world is well known and hopefully everyone who is not a white nationalist thinks this is bad. Dozier’s second thesis is a bit spicier– that ancient Greeks and Romans (particularly the former, it seems) actually did hold views similar to white nationalists, even if they would not recognize race as a biological reality. Moreover, he accuses historians, both past and present, of being too ready to rush to the ancient world’s defense, giving white nationalists ammunition whether they mean to or not. Thus, he positions the book in the ongoing intellectual crisis that the classics are having.

Dozier anticipates that people might object to his views by saying that the vices of the ancient Greeks and Romans were the vices of almost every premodern society, and counterargues that ancient Greece and Rome have a unique history of being used to justify racism and inequality in the West. The point that white nationalists often fetishize primary sources as opposed to just ignoring them is well supported, valid, and perhaps needed to be said, but I still feel the need to push back against it just a little bit. Dozier’s point is not really as revolutionary as he thinks– Paul Cartledge, who he chastises a few times, wrote the first edition of his famous work showing how elite Greek men constructed themselves as superior to others in the 80s; in the 90s, Amy Richlin accused scholars of neutering Juvenal’s misogyny by arguing the sixth satire was actually a joke. If some modern scholars are a bit too rosy about Greek views of Jewish people, it may have less to do with willful ignorance or defensiveness than the desire to find new research topics and move beyond older scholarship. In fact, it's possible that some readers of this book will come away with a more positive view of the reality of antiquity, since they will find out that the Spartans didn't actually throw disabled infants off of cliffs. Dozier can actually be accused of doing the same things he calls other historians out for doing when he, for example, oversimplifies the causes of Caesar’s Civil War to make it look like Caesar was solely responsible, in reaction to far-right Trump supporters urging Trump to “cross the Rubicon”. Focusing on antiquity is only part of the picture, as white nationalists are known to also love Vikings and the Crusades. As for Greece and Rome’s unique role in justifying oppression, a useful comparison can be found in Egyptology, which is undergoing a similar crisis to the classics. Around the same time that Nazis were spouting nonsense about Aryan continuity with Dorians and Spartans, the ideology of Pharonism arose in Egypt, purporting that there existed a direct national continuity between ancient and modern Egypt, which was sometimes used to justify authoritarianism. Just as white nationalism is on the rise in recent years, the 2020s have seen the return of Pharonist ideology. Even looking just at the West, some past white supremacist praised ancient Egypt by arguing that they were actually white.

Speaking of Egypt, the brief section about the Netflix Cleopatra documentary annoyed me enough to get its own paragraph. It’s undeniable that much of the backlash was simply racism, but there were also many others, including African-Americans, who took issue with the casting because they wished Netflix would just make a documentary about someone less overexposed who we know for sure was actually black. There were further complaints that portraying Cleopatra as a black woman as a way to make her inspiring to a marginalized population ignored the reality of who she really was, both as the queen of a regime that past scholarship (as Dozier points out) considered apartheid, but as a woman whose country would only become independent a millennia later after she killed herself when a European man defeated her. It’s also hard to believe that Netflix didn’t anticipate any backlash to the casting, especially seeing how the trailer emphasized how supposedly schools don’t want you to know that Cleopatra was black, so they deserve blame for essentially throwing that poor actress to the wolves to generate hype (which didn’t work, because the production got bad streaming numbers and even worse reviews). It may just be time to accept that Cleopatra, black or white, is not a good role model for the modern age.

Overall, this is an important work about a developing topic that will surely provoke much consideration and debate.

[Julia Lauber]

Such an important book. Everyone who loves Ancient Greece and Rome needs to read this.

Dozier analyzes how far right activists and scholars use their knowledge about the classical world to justify their behavior and views. How they use philosophies, stories and characters I love and adore and twist them to help their far right views (To be honest, most of the time not much twisting is necessary, just not adding a small context or using the interpretation of a respected scholar a hundred years ago suffice).
The book focuses mostly on the USA, but the same tactics gets used also by similar far right movements in Europe. Dozier mentions some examples from Greece and UK.

Incredible work done by Dozier. How he could stomach this research without screaming and/or raging all the time is beyond me..

[Charles Wynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly important book.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I understand what the author is warning his reader. It is true that many of the Greek city- states were not ideal democracies. They all had some form of slavery. However, I feel that he takes a leap when he suggests that following the ideals and customs of our forefathers is not important. I never would condone someone be xenophobic on the other hand wanting good immigration policy does not deem one as such.

[James Magrini · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first encounter with the author (Dozier) was through an interview conducted on the popular YouTube channel, “Tribunate,” which offers deep dives into all things associated with ancient Rome. I was interested in most of the things Dozier discussed regarding what I initially misinterpreted as the “misappropriation” of the classics by Alt-right (White Nationalist) writers… some of whom are legitimate and quite impressive scholars. Note here, I praise the scholarship without endorsing the ends toward which that scholarship is directed...

To clarify, what the book does effectively is to demonstrate that the type of ideas that make it into and indeed undergird “white supremacist” ideologies are already present in the ancient literature. Thus, this book in no way serves as an “apologia” for the classics, in that the author’s job is not to somehow rescue the classics from “plundering readers” (like roving “barbarians”), who take what they need from the great texts of antiquity and leave the rest, hence, as Nietzsche liked to point out, they “misinterpret and subsequently defile the whole.”

What is truly impressive is Dozier’s scholarship, and he masterfully presents for readers a deep and coherent historical overview and critique of “White Supremacy literature” (WS) in relation to the classics. The chapter notes are extensive, spanning pages 189-260, and for what appears to be a “mainstream” book, this is a bit of an anomaly, but it is published by Yale (New Haven), so, perhaps not so “anomalous.” Nonetheless, this section, if one is accustomed to trudging through academic texts, is extremely valuable for the pursuit of further reading/scholarship - erudition on the subject.

The book is rife with instances of WS readings of the classics, which are drawn from archaic and classical Greece as well as Roman sources, and includes statesmen, philosophers, poets, and mythological figures. I’ll offer two examples, which will suffice for the purposes of elucidating the type of material readers will encounter.

The first intrigued me greatly and was focused on the French intellectual Renaud Camus’ reading of the Platonic dialogue “Cratylus,” which is concerned (in an early, non-systematic form) with such linguistic issues that later emerge in the structuralist writings of Ferdinand de Saussure. The argument, in brief - and this is precisely what readers get - a highly truncated exposition of Camus’ argument - runs thusly:

Although Plato’s dialogue “Cratylus” ends in aporetic breakdown, i.e., there is no definitive solution to the question regarding what resembles the argument between “nominalism” and “essentialism” in language. Yet, Camus takes the side of “essentialism,” and then uses this conclusion to buttress his argument for an inherent (essential) and immutable sense of “nationalism” (and by extension, “White Identity”). Specifically, in this case, Camus fears “Frenchness” is in danger of being diluted or threatened with extinction by the influx of unchecked immigration.

The second example is perhaps far more well-known, and we might say it is traceable, in great part, to Karl Popper’s now famous argument (“The Open Society and its Enemies”) that Plato offers a blueprint for a fascistic (totalitarian) society that betrays the democratic ideals embraced by his teacher, Socrates. The WS writers, Dozier argues, adopt a view that stands in contention to Poppers’ general argument, in that WS find “positive” elements (in place of Popper’s “negative” views) in Plato’s description of the ancient city-state as these elements relate directly to their ideology, and in many ways, as the author stresses throughout, and as stated above, such elements are already present to the ancient text itself.

Thus, from “The Republic” it is possible to glean an understanding of the importance in socio-political thought and practice of “hierarchy,” a stinging critique and distrust of a “democracy” stressing tolerance and equality among the citizenry, and instead embrace views wherein the “highborn” are praised above the “low born,” wisdom stands above ignorance, man as superior to woman, and freeborn as above slaves and “resident aliens”. It is also possible, reading Plato to arrive at interpretations that mirror and contribute to WS views regarding the dangers associated with “declining” or “decaying” society - where the essential view related to the “purity” of so-called “whiteness” is threatened and stands teetering on the precipice of extinction.

The author does talk of the way that WS, while not so much manipulating the texts, “cherry-pick” elements of the ancient texts that can be marshalled in defense of service of their arguments, and to reiterate, the texts, as they stand, offer a rich and fertile garden for the harvesting of the type of ideas comprising various strands of “intellectual” or “academic” WS views. With that stated, one will probably not find in the primary WS literature a discussion regarding the fact that Plato’s Socrates refers to this city as an “ideal city in words” (Kallipolis), and the core issue of the radical difficulty that would be encountered in the attempt at making this city a reality, for at the heart of the dialogue is the ever-present issue of the “interactable relationship” between the philosopher and the city (statesmen). Even cursory readers of Plato are familiar with the fate he met upon his ill-advised trip to Syracuse, for in his attempt to “actualize” the city of words he sought to instill virtue in a tyrant, Dionysius II…in the end, Plato barely escaped with his life.

The one critique I have of the book runs thusly: I hoped the author would have fleshed out more of the details related the interpretive readings of the ancient classics offered by the many WS scholars mentioned, but I understand, now, after having read it, that this would not have been in line with the book’s overall purpose or aim, comprising its appeal to both general and specialist readers. NB: I believe journalists will be drawn to this book and its unique contents, as it serves as an authoritative overview of WS thought in relation to the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, and it is meticulously researched and presented in an accessible and elegant writing style.

A brief note on “race,” as this is such a crucial issue and flash point for (WS) thinkers: In Bruce Thornton’s excellent book, “Greek Ways” (2000), he offers an interesting and enlightening quotation by the ancient orator Isocrates (380 BCE), stressing that “Greekness” is not grounded in common blood, but instead in a notion of common (koinē) culture, “The name ‘Hellenes’ suggests no longer a race but an intelligence, and…the title ‘Hellenes’ is applied rather to those who share our culture than to those who share a common blood” (p. 81).

In my opinion, the book also inspires curious readers to pursue some of the literature highlighted by Dozier in the “notes,” e.g., I recently purchased several books by Prof. Greg Johnson, who writes on “Tyranny and Wisdom,” and does so through an exploration of two of Plato’s dialogues: “Gorgias” and “Alcibiades I,” or the “greater Alcibiades” (of questionable Platonic authorship/apocrypha). As I discovered, to get an in-depth and detailed analyses of these authors’ ideas, one must, as did Dozier, go “to the source”.

Dr. James M. Magrini
Former: Philosophy/College of Dupage

[A YOGAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Curtis Dozier zeigt in The White Pedestal, wie moderne white-nationalist Vordenker die griechische und römische Antike instrumentalisieren, um ihre ideologischen Positionen historisch zu legitimieren. Das Buch legt offen, dass antike Symbole wie das Parthenon-Emblem oder Spartanerhelme gezielt eingesetzt werden, um eine vermeintliche Kontinuität zwischen Antike und gegenwärtigen Formen von Unterdrückung zu suggerieren.
Dozier argumentiert, dass selektiv zugespitzte Bilder der Antike als Projektionsfläche dienen für politische Ordnungen, die von white supremacists angestrebt werden. In Kapitel 1: Das Wer und Warum der White-Nationalist-Geschichte werden die Akteure und Netzwerke dieser Ideologien analysiert, während Kapitel 4: Die Nachkommen des Achill die romantisierende Verklärung kriegerischer Mythen kritisch dekonstruiert.
Das Werk ist damit eine notwendige Untersuchung über die problematische Verflechtung von Altertumswissenschaft, politischer Symbolik und rechtsextremem Denken.
Dozier entlarvt die Aneignung der Antike durch white nationalists als gezielte Geschichtsklitterung, die Marmorstatuen und antike Mythen zu ideologischen Schutzschildern moderner Ausgrenzung umdeutet. Er zeigt damit, dass die vermeintliche Verteidigung des „Abendlandes“ auf einer selektiven intellektuellen Aneignung beruht, die historische Komplexität ausblendet, um daraus ein ästhetisiertes Fundament für Gewalt und Suprematie zu formen.
Ein kurzer Impuls dazu:
Es handelt sich um eine perfide Form symbolischer Enteignung: Rechtsextreme Netzwerke reduzieren die Antike auf ein vermeintlich homogenes „weißes“ Erbe und schneiden ihr damit gerade jene Vielfalt und Widersprüchlichkeit ab, die sie tatsächlich ausmacht. Doziers Analyse wirkt hier wie ein notwendiges Gegengift, indem sie daran erinnert, dass weder Achilles noch die Denker Athens als Projektionsflächen für rassistische Ideologien taugen, sondern Teil einer historischen Welt sind, die weit komplexer ist als jede identitäre Vereinfachung.

[George Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, accessible and well-written analysis of the links between white supremacists and the study of Greece and Rome. An overdue counter-balance to all the 300 memes and white statue social media accounts, but one which takes its task seriously and dives deep into the reaches of pernicious and violent ideologies.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

The subtitle says it all. Well done, in a very readable and enlightening manner.

[Serge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I plan to use this book as part of my Intro to Political Theory class Winter 2027. It will help us contextualize Aristotle's contemporary echo in an atmosphere of fraught racial politics