EAN: 9780141984452

IN THE SHADOW OF THE GODS - DOMINIC LIEVEN KART...

From the acclaimed Wolfson Prize-winning author  a dazzling history of the world's emperors For
millennia much of the world was ruled by emperors: a handful of individuals claimed no limit to
the lands they could rule over and no limit to their authority. They operated beyond normal
human constraint and indeed often claimed a superhuman or divine authority. In practice they
ran the gamut from being some of the most remarkable men who ever lived  to being some of the
worst and least remarkable. Dominic Lieven's marvellous new book  In the Shadow of the Gods  is
the first to grapple seriously with this extraordinary phenomenon. Across the world peoples 
willingly or unwillingly  fell into orbit around figures who reshaped or destroyed entire
societies  imposed religions and invaded rivals. Lieven describes the anatomy of imperial
monarchy and the principles by which it functioned. He compares the great emperors of antiquity
the caliphs and the warrior-emperors of the steppe before he turns to the Habsburg  Russian 
Ottoman  Mughal and Chinese emperors  packing the book with extraordinary stories  astute
observations and a sense of both delight and horror at these individuals' antics. The entire
breadth of extreme human behaviour is here - from warlords to patrons of the arts  from
political genius to feeble incapacity and pathological violence. As one of the great experts
both on empires and on Russian history  Lieven is brilliantly qualified to write a book that
brings to life a system of rule that dominated most of human history  as well as some of
history's grandest and most dismaying figures.

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