Why devote a Companion to the "mirrors for princes", whose very existence is debated? These texts offer key insights into political thoughts of the past. Their ambiguous, problematic status further enhances their interest. And although recent research has fundamentally challenged established views of these texts, until now there has been no critical introduction to the genre. This volume therefore fills this important gap, while promoting a global historical perspective of different “mirrors for princes” traditions from antiquity to humanism, via Byzantium, Persia, Islam, and the medieval West. This Companion also proposes new avenues of reflection on the anchoring of these texts in their historical realities. Contributors are Makram Abbès, Denise Aigle, Olivier Biaggini, Hugo Bizzarri, Charles F. Briggs, Sylvène Edouard, Jean-Philippe Genet, John R. Lenz, Louise Marlow, Cary J. Nederman, Corinne Peneau, Stéphane Péquignot, Noëlle-Laetitia Perret, Günter Prinzing, Volker Reinhardt, Hans-Joachim Schmidt, Tom Stevenson, Karl Ubl, and Steven J. Williams.

A historical look at the roots of management theory reveals its flaws and offers important lessons for today's leaders For four thousand years, kings and queens ruled the known world, while management experts—in the guises of sages, clerics, and courtiers of all kinds—told them how to do it. These proto-experts in leadership, ethics, and strategy wrote books describing the perfect prince. In such books, rulers could seek and polish their own reflection, as in a looking glass. These books were called mirrors for princes. Mirrors for Princes documents the clichés of this genre of literature. Typical mirrors taught the same formula, over and over: that people behave badly because of their pursuit of self-interest, which needs to be harnessed to a common goal by the ruler or leader. Eighteenth-century revolutions spelled the demise of princes and led to books that sought instruct them. Today, the clichés of mirrors for princes live on in modern mirrors for managers. The rhetoric of common goals and transformational leadership has a pleasing resonance for top managers, affirming their authority, just as it did for kings and queens in mirrors for princes. Keeley's goal is to sensitize readers to these clichés and to provide today's business leaders with the tools to think more critically when reading business books. Mirrors for Princes concludes with advice for writers of management literature, suggesting how organizational theorists and business ethicists might avoid replicating the clichés of mirrors for princes by adopting a social-contract model of organizations.

A comprehensive guide to a crucial aspect of Old Norse literature.

This volume aims to broaden and nuance knowledge about the history, art, culture, and heritage of Eastern Europe relative to Byzantium. From the thirteenth century to the decades after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the regions of the Danube River stood at the intersection of different traditions, and the river itself has served as a marker of connection and division, as well as a site of cultural contact and negotiation. The Routledge Handbook of Byzantine Visual Culture in the Danube Regions, 1300–1600 brings to light the interconnectedness of this broad geographical area too often either studied in parts or neglected altogether, emphasizing its shared history and heritage of the regions of modern Greece, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Czechia. The aim is to challenge established perceptions of what constitutes ideological and historical facets of the past, as well as Byzantine and post-Byzantine cultural and artistic production in a region of the world that has yet to establish a firm footing on the map of art history. The 24 chapters offer a fresh and original approach to the history, literature, and art history of the Danube regions, thus being accessible to students thematically, chronologically, or by case study; each part can be read independently or explored as part of a whole.

Thousands of intact ceramic bowls and plates as well as fragments made in the medieval Byzantine empire survive to this day. Decorated with figural and non-figural imagery applied in a variety of techniques and adorned with colourful paints and glazes, the vessels can tell us much about those who owned them and those who looked at them. In addition to innumerable ceramic vessels, a handful of precious metal bowls and plates survive from the period. Together, these objects make up the art of dining in medieval Byzantium. This art of dining was effervescent, at turns irreverent and deadly serious, visually stunning and fun. It is suggestive of ways in which those viewing the objects used a quotidian and biologically necessary (f)act – that of eating – to reflect on their lives and deaths, their aspirations and their realities. This book examines the ceramic and metal vessels in terms of the information offered on the foods eaten, the foods desired and their status; the spectacle of the banquet; the relationship between word and image in medieval Byzantium; the dangers of taste; the emergence of new moral and social ideals; and the use of dining as a tool in constructing and enforcing hierarchy. This book is of appeal to scholarly and non-scholarly audiences interested in the art and material culture of the medieval period and in the social history of food and eating.

If the government is a problem, what should be done about it? A new era of intervention has begun following a global pandemic, climate change and strategic rivalry – but will a better government emerge from this? Political turmoil and polarisation are causing people to question how well their societies are governed and how leaders conduct themselves, while urgent practical challenges are arising for public policy and administration. A deeper concern, then, is to re-examine the nature and problem of government itself. This study covers historically enduring dilemmas that will persist, as well as emerging issues such as climate change and Artificial Intelligence. It sets out core concerns that systems of government, of all kinds, must address. The wide diversity of political beliefs and constitutions calls for toleration in order to foster effective collaboration across types and levels of government. Each country, community and individual follows their own path, but we can all do something to help restore political trust and to raise standards of public administration. An essential guide for those seeking general and lasting principles of good government, including elected officials, civil servants, community leaders and students of politics and public policy.