Offers a sweeping, entertaining journey through the real power structures of world historyFive Thousand Years of Monarchy challenges everything you thought you knew about political history. With wit, clarity, and a deep command of historical detail, Michael Arnheim reframes five millennia of global governance through a strikingly original lens: the idea that every government, from ancient Sumer to modern China, is either a monarchy or an oligarchy—regardle...

Explore an insightful and original discussion of the causes of the fall of the Roman EmpireIn Why Rome Fell: Decline and Fall, or Drift and Change?, celebrated scholar of Roman history Dr. Michael Arnheim delivers a fascinating and robust exploration of the causes of and reasons for Rome’s fall in the West. Steeped in applications of elite theory to the later Roman Empire, the author discusses several interconnected issues that influenced the decline of Ro...

This book offers a fresh and original analysis of the power structure of a number of societies, past and present. There are and ever have been only two essential models of government: minority rule of all types (labelled "oligocracy") and regimes in which power is concentrated in the hands of a single individual (labelled “monocracy”).The present-day “democracies” of Britain and the United States are in reality composite oligocracies made up of several disparate elements. Oligocracies are ...

Which is right, atheism or organised religion? Answer: Neither. What's wrong with atheism? The intolerant radical "New Atheists" of today champion the theory of evolution by natural selection, which may help to explain small changes and variations in living things but can't explain the origin of the universe or the origin of life – because natural selection needs life to kick-start it into action. No life, no natural selection!Does organised religion do any better? Not at all. It simply ha...

This timely and comprehensive book, post-Brexit, is written by an experienced human rights barrister and covers all aspects of human rights and civil liberties in the United Kingdom. The much talked about UK Bill of Rights, supposedly replacing the Human Rights Act, is also covered. The book is wide ranging and certainly topical as we enter a new phase of our relationship with Europe. It will be invaluable to the layperson, student and professional alike.

“Wokeism” and, before it, “Political Correctness” are attempts to replace traditional privilege with a new privileged class of special interest groups that have supposedly been discriminated against. In Three Pillars of Wisdom*,* Dr. Michael Arnheim argues that that there are and always have been only two forms of government: monarchy and oligarchy, regardless of the labels placed on them, and that politics, religion, and law are all fields of contention between “in” and “out” gro...

Your complete guide to understanding the U.S. Constitution.Want to make sense of the U.S. Constitution? This new edition walks you through this revered document, explaining how the articles and amendments came to be and how they have guided legislators, judges, and presidents—and sparked ongoing debates along the way. You'll get the lowdown on all the big issues—from separation of church and state to impeachment to civil rights—that continue to affect Americans' da...

A concise survey of the culture and civilization of mankind, The Lessons of History is the result of a lifetime of research from Pulitzer Prize–winning historians Will and Ariel Durant.With their accessible compendium of philosophy and social progress, the Durants take us on a journey through history, exploring the possibilities and limitations of humanity over time. Juxtaposing the great lives, ideas, and accomplishments with cycles of war and conquest, t...

The key to human nature that Marx found in wealth and Freud in sex, Bertrand Russell finds in power. Power, he argues, is man's ultimate goal, and is, in its many guises, the single most important element in the development of any society. Writting in the late 1930s when Europe was being torn apart by extremist ideologies and the world was on the brink of war, Russell set out to found a 'new science' to make sense of the traumatic events of the day and explain those that would follow.

'The rule of law and property rights were the ''secret weapons'' that made Western Europe and its offshoots in North America and Oceania democratic and prosperous. How did this European legal system come to be? To answer this question, Bart Wauters and Marco de Benito offer us a fresh overview of the history of law in Europe, dealing with both civil and common law, from Roman times through to its codification. This book is a stimulating, lucid, and imaginative read.'- Jesus...

Drawing upon the latest historical and archaeological research, Dr Peter Sarris provides a panoramic account of the history of Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East from the fall of Rome to the rise of Islam. The formation of a new social and economic order in western Europe in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, and the ascendancy across the West of a new culture of military lordship, are placed firmly in the context of on-going connections and influence radiating outwards fro...

The rise of the modern absolutist monarchies in Europe constitutes in many ways the birth of the modern historical epoch. Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, the companion volume to Perry Anderson’s Lineages of the Absolutist State, is a sustained exercise in historical sociology to root the development of absolutism in the diverse routes taken from the slave-based societies of Ancient Greece and Rome to fully-fledged feudalism. In the course of this study Anderson vind...