Freshly Printed - allow 7 days lead
Couldn't load pickup availability
Rites of Power
Symbolism, Ritual, and Politics Since the Middle Ages
Sean Wilentz (Edited by)
9780812216950
Paperback / softback, published 23 March 1999
360 pages, 30 illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.6 cm, 0.504 kg
"This volume encompasses a rich world of political culture, from the Spanish kings of the Reconquest to German metal-workers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. . . . A welcome contribution to the interdisciplinary study of ritual, symbolism, and power."-Journal of Ritual Studies
Rites of Power provides a sweeping overview of the symbolism of power from tenth-century France to modern Britain. Approaching their topic from an eclectic range of intellectual traditions, the authors turn the study of politics, social relations, and cultural creation into a single endeavor. The essays begin with three assumptions: that all societies are ordered and governed by "master fictions" (divine right, equality for all) which make political hierarchy appear natural; that political rhetoric includes nonverbal communication (royal portraits, statistics on crop yields); and that common rhetoric can mean different things to various segments of a culture ("states' rights" during the American Civil War). Societies studied include France and Spain in the Middle Ages, post-Revolutionary France, the modern British monarchy, tsarist Russia, colonial Virginia, and industrial Germany. The essays were selected to provide methodological as well as historical coverage; the result is a comprehensive treatment along the cutting edge of several disciplines. This book will appeal to scholars and students in the fields of history, political science, sociology, anthropology, and art history.
Acknowledgments PT. 1. AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL OVERVIEW PT. 2. RITUAL, KINGSHIP, AND POLITICS IN FRANCE, C. 900-1715 PT. 3. THE LIMITS OF SYMBOLIC POWER: SPAIN, C. 1157-1643 PT. 4. RITES OF POWER SINCE THE AGE OF REVOLUTION: FRANCE, BRITAIN, AND RUSSIA PT. 5. SYMBOLISM, POLITICS, AND EVERYDAY LIFE: COLONIAL VIRGINIA AND INDUSTRIAL GERMANY Contributors
Introduction: Teufelsdrockh's Dilemma: On Symbolism, Politics, and History
-Sean Wilentz
1. Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power
-Clifford Geertz
2. Models of Rulership in French Royal Ceremonial
-Ralph E. Giesey
3. Legend, Ritual, and Discourse in the Lit de Justice Assembly: French Constitutional Ideology, 1527-1641
-Sarah Hanley
4. Unsacred Monarchy: The Kings of Castile in the Late Middle Ages
-Teofilo F. Ruiz
5. Power and Propaganda in the Spain of Philip IV
-J. H. Elliott
6. Politics, Images, and Symbols in Post-Revolutionary France
-Maurice Agulhon
7. Splendor out of Court: Royal Spectacle and Pageantry in Modern Britain, c. 1820-1977
-David Cannadine
8. Moscow and Petersburg: The Problem of Political Center in Tsarist Russia, 1881-1914
-Richard Wortman
9. Communication and Control: Authority Metaphors and Power Contests on Colonel Landon Carter's Virginia Plantation, 1752-1778
-Rhys Isaac
10. Organizational Order or Eigensinn? Workers' Privacy and Workers' Politics in Imperial Germany
-Alf LÜdtke
Index