Persian imperialism needed no ideological othering to justify conquest

Evidence

If the Persians needed to make play with the notion of an ‘Other’ or to construct an archive of racial stereotypes or to put on plays and write histories in order to justify their conquests, those activities have gone unrecorded. They just seem to have set about trying to conquer their neighbours. In the sixth century BC the Persian empire expanded westwards to include Lydia and the Greek cities of Asia Minor. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 34

Categorization

• XREF: Directly engages and complicates Said’s and postcolonial theory’s claim that imperial domination requires constructing an ideological Other.
• DEEPTHINKING: Offers a quietly devastating empirical rebuke to the assumption that conquering powers universally manufacture racial-Other narratives to justify empire.

Related

• Said’s imperialism critique only ever applies to Western empires. (similarity 0.83)
• Said traces imperial conquest back to centuries-old Western habits of representing the Orient (similarity 0.78)
• Iranian civilization dominated Islamic political and cultural power for centuries (similarity 0.78)