Empty Bottles of Gentilism: Kingship and the Divine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (to 1050) | National Humanities Center

Work of the Fellows: Monographs

Empty Bottles of Gentilism: Kingship and the Divine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (to 1050)

By Francis Oakley (Trustee; NHC Fellow, 1990–91)

Ancient Greece; Ancient Rome; Political Philosophy; Kingship

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010

From the publisher’s description:

In this book—the first volume in his groundbreaking trilogy on the emergence of western political thought—Francis Oakley explores the roots of secular political thinking by examining the political ideology and institutions of Hellenistic and late Roman antiquity and of the early European middle ages. By challenging the popular belief that the ancient Greek and Roman worlds provided the origins of our inherently secular politics, Oakley revises our understanding of the history of political theory in a fundamental and far-reaching manner that will reverberate for decades. This book lays the foundations for Oakley's next two volumes, which will develop his argument that it is in the Latin middle ages that we must seek the ideological roots of modern political secularism.

Awards and Prizes
Haskins Medal (2016)
Subjects
History / Ancient Greece / Ancient Rome / Political Philosophy / Kingship /

Oakley, Francis (Trustee; NHC Fellow, 1990–91). Empty Bottles of Gentilism: Kingship and the Divine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (to 1050). The Emergence of Western Political Thought in the Latin Middle Ages. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.