Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- About the Cover
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Prologue: The Prehistory of Power: Souls Spirits, Deities
- Part One Kings and Emperors
- 1 Divine Kingship in Mesopotamia
- 2 Pharaohs among the Indestructibles
- 3 Kingship among the Hebrews
- 4 The Deification of Roman Emperors
- 5 The Deva-Rajas in India and Southeast Asia
- 6 The Chinese Mandate from Heaven
- 7 The Japanese Imperial Cult
- Part Two Empires before the Common Era
- 8 The Legendary Empire of the Sumerians
- 9 Legendary Empires of Preclassical Greece
- 10 Patriarchs, Exodus, and the Epic of Israel
- 11 Legendary Empires of Ancient India
- 12 The Legendary Founding of Rome
- Part Three Founders
- 13 Moses: The Israelite Lawgiver
- 14 Buddha and Legends of Previous Buddhas
- 15 The Savior Narratives
- 16 Muhammad, the Qur’an, and Islam
- 17 The Virgin Mary through the Centuries
- 18 Tonantzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe
- Part Four Empires of the Common Era
- 19 Narrative Inventions of the Holy Roman Empire
- 20 The Epic of Kings, Alexander the Great, and the Malacca Sultinate
- 21 The Franks, Charlemagne, and the Chansons de Geste
- 22 The Legendary Kingdom of King Arthur
- 23 Ethiopian Kings and the Ark of the Covenant
- 24 Narratives of the Virgin Queen
- Part Five Ideologies
- 25 Discovery: The European Narrative of Power
- 26 Epics of the Portuguese Seaborne Empire
- 27 Dekanawida and the Iroquois League
- 28 The New England Canaan of the Puritans
- 29 The Marxist Classless Society
- 30 Adolph Hitler: Narratives of Aryans and Jews
- Epilogue: A Clash of Narratives
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
Prologue: The Prehistory of Power: Souls Spirits, Deities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- About the Cover
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Prologue: The Prehistory of Power: Souls Spirits, Deities
- Part One Kings and Emperors
- 1 Divine Kingship in Mesopotamia
- 2 Pharaohs among the Indestructibles
- 3 Kingship among the Hebrews
- 4 The Deification of Roman Emperors
- 5 The Deva-Rajas in India and Southeast Asia
- 6 The Chinese Mandate from Heaven
- 7 The Japanese Imperial Cult
- Part Two Empires before the Common Era
- 8 The Legendary Empire of the Sumerians
- 9 Legendary Empires of Preclassical Greece
- 10 Patriarchs, Exodus, and the Epic of Israel
- 11 Legendary Empires of Ancient India
- 12 The Legendary Founding of Rome
- Part Three Founders
- 13 Moses: The Israelite Lawgiver
- 14 Buddha and Legends of Previous Buddhas
- 15 The Savior Narratives
- 16 Muhammad, the Qur’an, and Islam
- 17 The Virgin Mary through the Centuries
- 18 Tonantzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe
- Part Four Empires of the Common Era
- 19 Narrative Inventions of the Holy Roman Empire
- 20 The Epic of Kings, Alexander the Great, and the Malacca Sultinate
- 21 The Franks, Charlemagne, and the Chansons de Geste
- 22 The Legendary Kingdom of King Arthur
- 23 Ethiopian Kings and the Ark of the Covenant
- 24 Narratives of the Virgin Queen
- Part Five Ideologies
- 25 Discovery: The European Narrative of Power
- 26 Epics of the Portuguese Seaborne Empire
- 27 Dekanawida and the Iroquois League
- 28 The New England Canaan of the Puritans
- 29 The Marxist Classless Society
- 30 Adolph Hitler: Narratives of Aryans and Jews
- Epilogue: A Clash of Narratives
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
Summary
The earliest humans were, for many reasons, ill-equipped for survival. While living in trees our primate ancestors evolved a suite of physical attributes: superior climbing skills, binocular color vision, big brains, and grasping hands and feet. In addition, they clustered in tribal bands—an evolutionary trend that had emerged among many species, including ants and bees, millions of years earlier and was responsible for what Edward Wilson (2013) describes as “the social conquest of earth.” Proliferation of primates following the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago brought the total primate species to more than two hundred, with population numbers sufficient for long-term survival. But these advantages were much reduced for the few species that ventured out of the safety of their treetop world. Efficient bipedal locomotion that had developed around four million years BP freed up the forelimbs, thus allowing for new means of procuring food, carrying things, making handicrafts, and tool use, but the earliest humans were otherwise vulnerable in many ways. Ground-dwelling predators were bigger and faster while hominids lacked effective fangs, claws, horns, and hooves.
Despite these physical limitations, the brain size of hominids more than doubled over the past three million years and the last surviving species, Homo sapiens, eventually rose to become the most powerful species on Earth. Cognitive skills, language, and particularly the nebulous faculty of imagination were instrumental, although dating the ways these combined to create power over environmental hazards is virtually impossible. We can trace the growing power of mind, language, and imagination in the historical period through written records, but how these human skills originally came together in prehistoric times requires guesswork and inference. Nevertheless, what we know of prehistoric worldviews, common ritual patterns, and mythology indicates that power, both personal and tribal, emerged within a new reality created by language and imagination and shaped by narrative. Tribal lore concerning the surrounding world, recollection of whatever history could be remembered, and action to be taken in crucial situations—all these were embodied in narrative, in stories told and retold down the generations. The tenuous relation between mythic stories and historical fact is obvious from even the most superficial reading of familiar mythologies. We simply cannot discover any reliable account of history from mythic narrative.
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- Invented History, Fabricated PowerThe Narratives Shaping Civilization and Culture, pp. 9 - 16Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2020