Of Death and Dominion: The Existential Foundations of Governance
Northwestern University Press (2007)
| Abstract | Death is the opposite not of life, but of power. And as such, Mohammed Bamyeh argues in this original work, death has had a great and largely unexplored impact on the thinking of governance throughout history, right down to our day. In Of Death and Dominion Bamyeh pursues the idea that a deep concern with death is, in fact, the basis of the ideological foundations of all political systems. Concentrating on four types of political systems—polis, empire, theocracy, and modern mass society systems—Bamyeh shows how each follows a specific strategy designed to pit power against the equalizing specter of death. Each of these strategies—consolation, expansion, preparation, and repression—produces a certain style of political behavior, as well as particular psychic traumas. In making his argument, Bamyeh revisits a wide range of empirical and theoretical discussions in existentialist philosophy, psychoanalysis, comparative historical sociology, literary studies, and anthropology. By demonstrating how schemes of power are by definition also schemes for defying death—despite their claims to the contrary—his book encourages us to think of a new style of politics, one oriented toward life | |||||||||
| Keywords | Political science Philosophy Death Political aspects | |||||||||
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| Buy the book | $24.95 direct from Amazon Amazon page | |||||||||
| Call number | JA71.B286 2007 | |||||||||
| ISBN(s) | 0810124416 9780810124400 0810124408 9780810124417 | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesJames W. Evra (1984). Death. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 5 (2).
Winston Chiong (2005). Brain Death Without Definitions. Hastings Center Report 35 (6):20-30.
Fred Feldman (1992). Confrontations with the Reaper: A Philosophical Study of the Nature and Value of Death. Oxford University Press.
Paul Fletcher (forthcoming). Prolegomena to a Theology of Death. Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 50 (2).
Steven Luper (2009). The Philosophy of Death. Cambridge University Press.
Laura Hengehold (2002). “In That Sleep of Death What Dreams...”: Foucault, Existential Phenomenology, and the Kantian Imagination. Continental Philosophy Review 35 (2).
Shelly Kagan (2012). Death. Yale University Press.
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