Religion, Empire, and Torture
The Case of Achaemenian Persia, with a Postscript on Abu Ghraib
Lincoln identifies three core components of an imperial theology that have transhistorical and contemporary relevance: dualistic ethics, a theory of divine election, and a sense of salvific mission. Beyond this, he asks, how did the Achaemenians understand their place in the cosmos and their moral status in relation to others? Why did they feel called to intervene in the struggle between good and evil? What was their sense of historic purpose, especially their desire to restore paradise lost? And how did this lead them to deal with enemies and critics as imperial power ran its course? Lincoln shows how these religious ideas shaped Achaemenian practice and brought the Persians unprecedented wealth, power, and territory, but also produced unmanageable contradictions, as in a gruesome case of torture discussed in the book’s final chapter. Close study of that episode leads Lincoln back to the present with a postscript that provides a searing and utterly novel perspective on the photographs from Abu Ghraib.
American Schools of Oriental Research: Frank Moore Cross Award
Won
“Bruce Lincoln gives us not only what is specific to the Achaemenids, imperfectly grasped by their contemporaries and rarely recognized by moderns, but also what is common to many empires, including the hopeful illusions of benign purpose and the pitfalls of success in the historical world. Within this work of literary and historical analysis, made possible by erudite mastery of many streams of knowledge from the past, Lincoln sets a moral lesson made necessary by knowledge of the present.”—Matthew Stolper, The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
“In this book, Bruce Lincoln sets himself one of the most demanding tasks a historian is called to perform: not just to understand a society or religion of the past, but to understand it so thoroughly that it illuminates some of the most pressing issues of our own present. Lincoln analyzes the violent expansion of the Achaemenian empire as a case study in imperialism, with the aim to understand better the ideology and practice of imperialistic expansion. He effortlessly masters a wealth of ancient Persian and Greek images and texts to make the reader understand how the indigenous actors—the kings who founded and ruled one of antiquity's most impressive empires, their courtiers, and their subjects—constructed the religious underpinnings of their violent conquests. By doing so, he sheds an illuminating— and highly uncomfortable—light on America's imperialistic foray into the very same regions that the Achaemenian kings once ruled.”—Fritz Graf, The Ohio State University
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