Absolute Power: The Real Lives of Europe's Most Infamous Rulers

by CS Denton

Overview

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power"
-Abraham Lincoln

Throughout history, all monarchs have lived with the strange dichotomy of simultaneously being human and more than human. In our time, when monarchies seem little more than tourist curiosities and democracy is taken for granted, it is easy to forget just how much power pre-democratic rulers once wielded.

The rulers and holders of political power in this book were all possessed of vast - in many cases, absolute - power: power which was often exercised arbitrarily and unjustly.

What unites the figures in this book is that they all, in one way or another, failed to live up to the extravagantly high hopes invested in them and, as a consequence, have been judged harshly by history.

A few, such as George III, might have been remembered more kindly were it not for mental illness changing their status from that of hero to villain. Some, like Louis XVI, were unfairly transformed into monsters by hostile propaganda, while others, such as Peter the Great, have been both celebrated as heroes and denounced as tyrants, often in the same breath. Finally, there are those rulers who, like Caligula or Ivan the Terrible, may well fully deserve their evil reputations.

Absolute Power is a study in how often rulers were carried away or overwhelmed by their exalted status, while a few were even driven over the edge into madness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781848584747
Publisher:	Arcturus Publishing
Publication date:	07/31/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Chad Denton is a writer and historian. He is author of a number of books, including Dead End and The War on Sex: Western Repression from the Torah to Victoria. He lives in Madison Heights, Virginia.

A native of Virginia, United States, Chad Denton has made history both his hobby and career. He has an MA in Early Modern European History from George Mason University and is working toward a PhD, also in European History, from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Among other projects, Chad hopes to follow up Absolute Power with a history of how sex and sexuality have been regulated in Europe.