Unearthly Powers

Why was religion so important for rulers in the pre-modern world? And how did the world come to be dominated by just a handful of religious traditions especially Christianity Islam and Buddhism? Drawing on sociology and anthropology as well as a huge range of historical literature from all regions and periods of world history Alan Strathern sets out a new way of thinking about transformations in the fundamental nature of religion and its interaction with political authority. His analysis distinguishes between two quite different forms of religiosity - immanentism which focused on worldly assistance and transcendentalism which centred on salvation from the human condition - and shows how their interaction shaped the course of history. Taking examples drawn from Ancient Rome to the Incas or nineteenth-century Tahiti a host of phenomena including sacred kingship millenarianism state-church struggles reformations iconoclasm and above all conversion are revealed in a new light.