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In this book--the first volume in his groundbreaking trilogy on the emergence of western political thought--Francis Oakley explores the roots of secular political thinking by examining the political ideology and institutions of Hellenistic and late Roman antiquity and of the early European middle ages. By challenging the popular belief that the ancient Greek and Roman worlds provided the origins of our inherently secular politics, Oakley revises our understanding of the history of political theory in a fundamental and far-reaching manner that will reverberate for decades. This book lays the foundations for Oakley's next two volumes, which will develop his argument that it is in the Latin middle ages that we must seek the ideological roots of modern political secularism.

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• General Introduction(p. ix)
• Acknowledgments(p. xiv)
• Prologue: Kingship and the Long Shadow of the Archaic Past(p. 1)
• I Prolegomenon: The Cosmic Kingship in Mediterranean Antiquity
• 1 Historical Orientation: Hellenic, Hellenistic, Hebraic, and Roman Antiquity(p. 13)
• 2 Ancient Affections: The Archaic Pattern of Royal Sacrality and the Hellenistic Legacy(p. 18)
• 3 Abrahamic Departures: The Hebraic and Christian Contribution(p. 40)
• II The Long Twilight of the Sacral Kingship in Greek and Latin Christendom (c. 3oo-c. 1050)
• 4 Historical Orientation: The Heirs of Rome(p. 67)
• 5 Patristic Affirmation: The Greek Fathers and the Eusebian Tradition in Christian Rome, Byzantium, and Russia(p. 79)
• 6 Patristic Reservation: The Latin Fathers from Tertullian to Augustine(p. 111)
• 7 The Early Medieval West (i): Sacral Kingship in the Germanic Successor Kingdoms(p. 143)
• 8 The Early Medieval West (ii): Fidelity, Consent, and the Emergence of "Feudal" Institutions(p. 177)
• 9 The Early Medieval West (iii): The Clerical Order and the Rise of the Papal Monarchy(p. 200)
• Epilogue(p. 220)
• Notes(p. 225)
• Bibliography(p. 265)
• Index(p. 287)

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CHOICE Review

The first of a projected three-volume series that restates and expands Oakley's recent book Kingship: The Politics of Enchantment (CH, Oct'06, 44-1079), this monograph seeks likewise to "affect something of a shift in the perspective from which we characteristically view" the history of medieval political thought. "We" begs the question of intended audience; medievalists will find little new here. However, if modern intellectual historians, cultural anthropologists, and comparative religion scholars prove to be the audience, then a paradigm shift may well result. Oakley's hoped-for shift in perspective requires two elements: a recognition that theocratic, sacral kingship has actually been the most ubiquitous and enduring form of human governance, and that the real roots of modern Western political secularism reside not in the brief Greco-Roman anomalies of democratic Athens and republican Rome, but rather in the desacralizing biblical notions of secular kingship and their reinvigoration during the Gregorian reform movement of the 11th century (to be considered in volume two). Hence, modern secular politics has a medieval rather than classical ancestry, Renaissance thinking notwithstanding. Virtues of this first volume include an ancient historical reach and splendidly lucid prose sustaining vast periods of time. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries. J. P. Huffman Messiah College

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Francis Oakley is President Emeritus and Edward Dorr Griffin Professor of the History of Ideas, Emeritus, at Williams College.