Book Launch
For millennia much of the world was ruled by emperors: a handful of individuals claimed no limit to the lands they could rule over and no limit to their authority. They operated beyond normal human constraint and indeed often claimed a superhuman or divine authority. In practice they ran the gamut from being some of the most remarkable men who ever lived, to being some of the worst and least remarkable.
Professor Dominic Lieven's new book, In the Shadow of the Gods, is the first to grapple seriously with this extraordinary phenomenon. Across the world peoples, willingly or unwillingly, fell into orbit around figures who reshaped or destroyed entire societies, imposed religions and invaded rivals. Lieven describes the anatomy of imperial monarchy and the principles by which it functioned. He compares the great emperors of antiquity, the caliphs and the warrior-emperors of the steppe before he turns to the Habsburg, Russian, Ottoman, Mughal and Chinese emperors, packing the book with extraordinary stories, astute observations and a sense of both delight and horror at these individuals' antics. The entire breadth of extreme human behaviour is here - from warlords to patrons of the arts, from political genius to feeble incapacity and pathological violence.
Speaker and Chair
Professor Dominic Lieven was a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Professor at LSE (1978-2011). Head of the Department of Government from 2001 to 2004 and Head of the Department of International History from 2009 to 2011). From there he was a Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge (2011-2019) and has been a Honorary Fellow from 2019. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of International History at LSE.
Professor Piers Ludlow is Head of Department of the International History Department at LSE.
More About This Event
This event is will be recorded as a podcast and made available to the public soon after.
The Department of International History (@lsehistory) teaches and conducts research on the international history of Britain, Europe and the world from the early modern era up to the present day.
While mandatory testing to access campus is no longer be required, mask wearing on campus will be voluntary but strongly encouraged – especially in lifts, classroom settings and other crowded places. Please be respectful of others’ decisions on mask use in all situations.