Unearthly Powers

Religious and Political Change in World History

Inbunden, Engelska, 2019

Av Alan Strathern, Alan (University of Oxford) Strathern

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Why was religion so important for rulers in the pre-modern world? And how did the world come to be dominated by just a handful of religious traditions, especially Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism? Drawing on sociology and anthropology, as well as a huge range of historical literature from all regions and periods of world history, Alan Strathern sets out a new way of thinking about transformations in the fundamental nature of religion and its interaction with political authority. His analysis distinguishes between two quite different forms of religiosity - immanentism, which focused on worldly assistance, and transcendentalism, which centred on salvation from the human condition - and shows how their interaction shaped the course of history. Taking examples drawn from Ancient Rome to the Incas or nineteenth-century Tahiti, a host of phenomena, including sacred kingship, millenarianism, state-church struggles, reformations, iconoclasm, and, above all, conversion are revealed in a new light.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2019-03-21
Mått156 x 235 x 22 mm
Vikt770 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor404
FörlagCambridge University Press
ISBN9781108477147

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Alan Strathern is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Oxford, and Tutor and Fellow in History at Brasenose College, Oxford. He is the author of Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth Century Sri Lanka: Portuguese Imperialism in a Buddhist Land (Cambridge, 2008), and co-editor with Zoltán Biedermann of Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History (2017). He was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in History in 2010.

Introduction; 1. The two forms of religion: being and nothingness; 2. Religion as the fabric of the state; 3. The two forms of sacred kingship: divinization and righteousness; 4. The economy of ritual efficacy and the empirical reception of Christianity; 5. The conversion of kings under the conditions of immanentism: Constantine to Cakobau; 6. Dreams of state: conversion as the making of kings and subjects; Conclusion; Glossary of theoretical terms.

'As an extraordinarily original, articulate analysis of the relation between religious thought and political power during some three thousand years, this is a tour de force that bears comparison to some of Max Weber's classic writings. Strathern's combination of theoretical sophistication, intellectual ambition, and elegant writing has no contemporary rival.' Victor B. Lieberman, Raoul Wallenberg Distinguished University Professor of History, University of Michigan