| Descript |
xvi, 391 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm |
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text rdacontent |
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unmediated rdamedia |
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volume rdacarrier |
| Note |
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 11 Mar 2019) |
| Contents |
Introduction -- A Language of Religion -- An Overview of the Book -- Some matters of methodology -- The axial age -- The two forms of religion: being and nothingness -- The characteristics of immanentism -- The characteristics of transcendentalism -- An unstable synthesis -- Religion as the fabric of the state -- The social power of religion -- Centralization under the conditions of immanentism -- Centralization under the conditions of transcendentalism -- The instabilities of transcendentalism -- The two forms of sacred kingship: divinization and righteousness -- Some notes on how to think about sacred kingship -- The divinized king -- The righteous king -- The inevitable synthesis -- The economy of ritual efficacy and the empirical reception of christianity -- Some reflections on the function of ritual -- Missionaries and the impression of ritual superiority -- Prophetic, millenarian and cargo movements -- The conversion of kings under the conditions of immanentism: constantine to cakobau -- A model of ruler conversion -- War and healing as turning points -- Overcoming resistance: immanentism recreated and destroyed -- Dreams of state: conversion as the making of kings and subjects -- The consolidation of the religious field -- Loyalty, governability and pacification -- Conversion and dilemmas of sacred kingship -- Conclusion -- Glossary of theoretical terms |
| Summary |
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 |
| Subject |
Religion and politics -- History
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Religion -- History
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Religions
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| ISBN |
9781108701952 |
| Call # |
201.7209 S899U 2019 |
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