Roger Ames first traces the evolution of five key concepts in early Chinese political philosophy and then analyzes these concepts as they are developed in The Art of Rulership. The Art of Rulership is
The ancient Mesoamerican city of Izapa in Chiapas, Mexico, is renowned for its extensive collection of elaborate stone stelae and altars, which were carved during the Late Preclassic period (300 BC-AD
Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age offers a radical reassessment of Constantine as an emperor, a pagan and a Christian. The book examines in detail a wide variety of evidence, including literature, secular and religious architectural monuments, coins, sculpture and other works of art. Setting the emperor in the context of the kings and emperors who preceded him, Jonathan Bardill shows how Constantine's propagandists exploited the traditional themes and imagery of rulership to portray him as having been elected by the supreme solar God to save his people and inaugurate a brilliant golden age. The author argues that the cultivation of this image made it possible for Constantine to reconcile the long-standing tradition of imperial divinity with his monotheistic faith by assimilating himself to Christ.
Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age offers a radical reassessment of Constantine as an emperor, a pagan and a Christian. The book examines in detail a wide variety of evidence, including literature, secular and religious architectural monuments, coins, sculpture and other works of art. Setting the emperor in the context of the kings and emperors who preceded him, Jonathan Bardill shows how Constantine's propagandists exploited the traditional themes and imagery of rulership to portray him as having been elected by the supreme solar God to save his people and inaugurate a brilliant golden age. The author argues that the cultivation of this image made it possible for Constantine to reconcile the long-standing tradition of imperial divinity with his monotheistic faith by assimilating himself to Christ.
In Family Fictions in Roman Art, Natalie Kampen reveals the profoundly de-naturalized ways in which family could be represented in the interests of political power during the Roman Empire. Her study examines a group of splendid objects made over the course of six hundred years, from carved gems to triumphal arches to ivory plaques, and asks how and why artists and their elite patrons chose to depict family to speak of everything from gender to the nature of rulership, from social rank to relationship itself. In the process, artists found new and often strikingly odd ways to give form to families from conquered lands and provinces as well as from the Italian countryside and the court. The book's contribution is in its combination of close attention to the creativity of Roman art and interest in the visual language of social and political relationships in a great Empire.
This collection conceptualizes the question of rulership in past centuries, incorporating such diverse disciplines as archaeology, art history, history, literature and psychoanalysis to illustrate how
