Monarchies 1000-2000 / W.M. Spellman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Spellman, W. M.

Series:

Globalities

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Monarchy--History.

Monarchy.

History.

Physical Description:

312 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

London : Reaktion, 2001.

Summary:

Monarchies 1000-2000 surveys a form of government whose legitimacy rests not on voluntary consensus but on age-old custom, heredity and/or religious sanction. Global in scope and comparative in approach, W. M. Spellman's survey establishes connections between monarchy as idea and practice in a variety of historical and cultural contexts across a millennium when the system was without serious rival. Spellman examines the intellectual assumptions behind different models of monarchy, tracing the ways in which each of these assumptions shifted in response to historical factors including expanding literacy, the development of modern science and the growth of rationalism, and the decline of institutional religion. While no human institution has retreated as rapidly as monarchy in the modern period, the system's remarkable longevity invites us to weigh the significance of hierarchy, subordination and dependence as constants of the human experience.

Contents:

Introduction: The Idea of Monarchy 10

1 Asian Archetypes: Chinese Absolutism and Japanese Symbolism 25

2 Monarchy without Manuscripts: Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas 71

3 Theocratic Monarchy: Byzantium and the Islamic Lands 105

4 The European Anomaly, 1000-1500 147

5 Monarchy and European Hegemony, 1500-1914 189

6 Endings and Remnants: Monarchy in the Twentieth Century 225

7 Monarchy and the State in the Twenty-First Century 269.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1861890877

OCLC:

45337802