Description
Book SynopsisSacred kingship has been the core political form, in small-scale societies and in vast empires, for much of world history. This collaborative and interdisciplinary book recasts the relationship between religion and politics by exploring this institution in long-term and global comparative perspective.
Trade Review[An] excellent edited collection. -- Christopher Smith * Anatomies of Power *
The brilliance of this volume, its abiding appeal, lies in unsettling teleologies. * Journal of Church and State *
This book is extremely ambitious, for it deals with no less a subject than provincializing secular modernity through a global history. * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *
Mustering the typological distinction between immanentist and transcendentalist religions,
Sacred Kingship in World History addresses forms of sacred rulership and sovereignty over a long swath of human prehistory and history, to the present. Well-framed by Moin and Strathern, this book will constitute an unavoidable point of reference for further discussion of conceptions and practices of sovereignty. -- Philippe Buc, author of
Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror: Christianity, Violence, and the WestThis broad-ranging and ambitious book is a model of theoretically informed, comparative world history. The individual case studies are impressively erudite, cover an astonishing geographical and chronological range, and are composed with an unusual level of collective rigor. Together, they demonstrate how the tension between immanent and transcendent kingship has shaped history in delicate and constantly evolving ways that continue to be profoundly felt in our world today. -- Giancarlo Casale, author of
The Ottoman Age of ExplorationTable of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments
1. Sacred Kingship in World History: Between Transcendence and Immanence, by A. Azfar Moin and Alan Strathern
2. Kings Before Kingship: The Politics of the Enchanted Universe, by Marshall Sahlins
3. Immanence in the Andes (1000–1700 ce): Divine Kingship, Stranger-Kingship, and Diarchy, by Peter Gose
4. Gods and Kings in Ancient Mesopotamia, by Nicole Brisch
5. Pharaonic Kingship and Its Biblical Deconstruction, by Jan Assmann
6. King, Divinity, and Law in Ancient Greece, by Lynette Mitchell
7. Humanizing the Divine and Divinizing the Human in Early China: Comparative Reflections on Ritual, Sacrifice, and Sovereignty, by Michael Puett
8. Caliphal Sovereignty or the Immanence of Transcendence, by Aziz Al-Azmeh
9. Neoplatonic Kingship in the Islamic World: Akbar’s Millennial History, by Jos Gommans and Said Reza Huseini
10. Hobbes the Egyptian: The Return to Pharaoh, or the Ancient Roots of Secular Politics, by Robert A. Yelle
11. Ancient Apostasy, Modern Drama: Henrik Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean, by Nicole Jerr
12. The Last Hindu King: How Nepal Desanctified Its Monarchy, by David N. Gellner
13. A Caliphate Beyond Politics: The Sovereignty of ISIS, by Faizal Devji
14. Sacred Kingship: A Synthesis, by A. Azfar Moin and Alan Strathern
Bibliography
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