Geography, climate, economics and nationalism are often seen as decisive forces in history. In this dynamic, original and convincing book Dominic Lieven considers emperors and their dynasties as motors of events.
Defying constrictions of time and space, ranging from Sargon of Akkad, the ruler of what is now northern Iraq (r. 2334-2279 BC), to the Emperor Hirohito of Japan (r. 1926-89), he believes that ‘for millennia, hereditary sacred monarchy had been the most desirable and successful form of polity on Earth’. (Inhabitants of city states, from Athens to Venice, might not have agreed.) Emperors could create and extend states more easily than impersonal forces, as Lieven shows in chapters on many different empires, from China to Austria. Emperors ruled heaven as well as Earth: they protected Buddhism in India, chose Christianity for the Roman empire and Shia Islam for Iran.
An explosion of books on monarchs, courts and dynasties has transformed history in the past 40 years, and Lieven has read most of them.
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