Kingship The Politics of Enchantmant [Hardcover]

From despots to powerless figureheads, and from the Neolithic era to the present, this book traces the history of kingship around the world and the tenacity of its connection with the sacred.

• Considers the many forms that kingship took during this period, including: the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt; the emperors of Japan; the Maya rulers of Mesoamerica; the medieval popes and emperors; and the English and French monarchs of early modern Europe
  
• Explores the panoply of governing roles that kingship involved – administrative, military, judicial, economic, religious and symbolic – but focussing on its connection with the sacred.
  
• Draws on the insights of cultural anthropology and comparative religion, as well as the on the resources provided by historians.

List of Illustrations.

Series Editor's Preface.

Acknowledgments.

Prologue: Matters of Perspective.

1. Gate of the Gods: Archaic and Global Patterns of Cosmic Kingship.

2. Royal Saviors and Shepherds: Hellenistic, Roman, Biblical, and Qur’ânic views of Kingship.

3. The Eusebian Accommodation: Christian Rulership in Imperial Rome, Byzantium, and Russia.

4. The Carolingian Accommodation: Christian Rulership in the Germanic Successor Kingdoms of Western Europe.

5. Sacral Kingship in Medieval and Early-Modern Europe: Papal, Imperial, National.

6. The Fading Nimbus: Modern Kingship and its Fate in a Disenchanted World.

Epilogue: Survivals and Revivals.

Notes.

Suggestions for Further Reading.

Index

This is a wide-ranging, cross-cultural exploration and meditation on sacral kingship by one of the rare, intellectl#¢