Invented History, Fabricated Power: The Narrative Shaping of Civilization and Culture

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Barry Wood

Invented History, Fabricated Power

The Narrative Shaping of Civilization and Culture

Barry Wood

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Hardback

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English

Anthem Press
16 November 2020

History: earliest times to present day

Invented History, Fabricated Powerbegins with an examination of prehistoric beliefs (in spirits, souls,mana,orenda) that provided personal explanation and power through ritual and shamanism among tribal peoples. On this foundation, spiritual power evolved into various kinds of divine sanction for kings and emperors (Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Indian, Chinese and Japanese). As kingships expanded into empires, fictional histories and millennia-long genealogies developed that portrayed imperial superiority and greatness. Supernatural events and miracles were attached to religious founders (Hebrew, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Islamic). A unique variation developed in the Roman Church which fabricated papal power through forgeries in the first millennium CE and the later ""doctrine of discovery"" which authorized European domination and conquest around the world during the Age of Exploration. Elaborate fabrications continued with epic histories and literary cycles from the Persians, Ethiopians, Franks, British, Portuguese, and Iroquois Indians. Both Marxists and Nazis created doctrinal texts which passed for economic or political explanations but were in fact self-aggrandizing narratives that eventually collapsed. The book ends with the idealistic goals of the current liberal democratic way of life, pointing to its limitations as a sustaining narrative, along with numerous problems threatening its viability over the long term.

By: Barry Wood
Imprint: Anthem Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 26mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781785274756
ISBN 10: 1785274759
Pages: 402
Publication Date: 16 November 2020
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Barry Wood has degrees from the universities of Toronto and British Columbia, and an interdisciplinary doctorate in English and American literature, humanities and religious studies from Stanford University. He teaches British and American literature at the University of Houston. His previous books include Malcolm Lowry: The Writer and His Critics.

Reviews for Invented History, Fabricated Power: The Narrative Shaping of Civilization and Culture

By focusing on the way political elites have used constructed narrative as a way of validating their claims to power, the author offers a fresh and convincing analytical framework for understanding the emergence of powerful leaders from ancient times to the present. The author offers a convincing argument that power needs to be considered as something less tangible than mere control of economies or military systems. Historians should also consider power as an invention of elites who for millennia have used artists and story tellers to weave narratives to 'convince' people of the legitimacy of claims to power being made by political elites. In Invented History, the author reminds us that for millennia history has essentially been a narrative shaped by legions of storytellers and artists, who have used their narrative skills to offer explicit validation for the claims to authority and leadership made by political elites. By providing a comprehensive overview of the role of narrative in the invention and maintenance of power, the author has provided historians who work in larger scales a new approach to the psychology of power, and the sociology of nationalist and imperialist thinking by entire populations. - Dr. Craig Benjamin, PhD, Professor of History, Frederik J. Meijer Honors College, Grand Valley State University