On kings / David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins -- The original political society / Marshall Sahlins -- The divine kingship of the Shilluk : on violence, utopia, and the human condition / David Graeber -- The atemporal dimensions of history : in the old Kongo kingdom, for example / Marshall Sahlins -- The stranger-kingship of the Mexica / Marshall Sahlins -- The people as nursemaids of the king : notes on monarchs as children, women's uprisings, and the return of the ancestral dead in central Madagascar / David Graeber -- The cultural politics of core-periphery relations / Marshall Sahlins -- Notes on the politics of divine kingship : or, elements for an archaeology of sovereignty / David Graeber.

In anthropology as much as in popular imagination, kings are figures of fascination and intrigue, heroes or tyrants in ways presidents and prime ministers can never be. This collection of essays by two of the world's most distinguished anthropologists--David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins--explores what kingship actually is, historically and anthropologically. As they show, kings are symbols for more than just sovereignty: indeed, the study of kingship offers a unique window into fundamental dilemmas concerning the very nature of power, meaning, and the human condition. Reflecting on issues such as temporality, alterity, and utopia--not to mention the divine, the strange, the numinous, and the bestial--Graeber and Sahlins explore the role of kings as they have existed around the world, from the BaKongo to the Aztec to the Shilluk and beyond. Richly delivered with the wit and sharp analysis characteristic of Graeber and Sahlins, this book opens up new avenues for the anthropological study of this fascinating and ubiquitous political figure.