The Politics of Aristocratic Empires is a study of a political order that prevailed throughout much of the world for many centuries without any major social conflict or change and with hardly any government in the modern sense. Although previously ignored by political science, powerful remnants of this old order still persist in modern politics. The historical literature on aristocratic empires typically is descriptive and treats each empire as unique. By contrast, this work adopts an analytical, explanatory, and comparative approach and clearly distinguishes aristocratic empires from both primitive and more modern, commercialized societies. It develops generalizations that are supported and richly illustrated by data from many empires and demonstrates that a pattern of politics prevailed across time, space, and cultures from ancient Egypt five millennia ago to Saudi Arabia five decades ago, from China and Japan to Europe, from the Incas and the Aztecs to the Tutsi. Kautsky argues that aristocrats, because they live off the labor of peasants, must perform the primary governmental functions of taxation and warfare. Their performance is linked to particular values and beliefs, and both functions and ideologies in turn condition the stakes, the forms, and the arenas of intra-aristocratic conflict the politics of the aristocracy. The author also analyzes the roles of the peasantry and the townspeople in aristocratic politics and shows that peasant revolts on any large scale occur only after commercial modernization. He concludes with chapters on the modernization of aristocratic empires and on the importance in modern politics of institutional and ideological remnants of the old aristocratic order.

A full account of the Italian nobility in the period after national unification.

We were going to call this a Pocket Guide to Noble Scandals but theres nothing noble about these aristocrats. Tales of greed, list, murder and mayhem litter the pages of Andy Hughes must-read book. Whether its gambling away their familys fortune, writing racy poems and shocking decent people, the aristocracy have been at the center of scandals for centuries, abusing their position of power to take advantage of everyone else or kill those who get in their way. This Pocket Guide to Scandals in the Aristocracy is a race through history, divided into eras to introduce the best and worst scurrilous tales from Francis Lovell being bricked up alive in his stately home to the ongoing mystery of Lord Lucan and delicious (but true) gossip which delighted readers when the aristocrats were thinly disguised in the novels of their day. Bring history alive with this fact-filled guide.Youll also love: The Pocket Guide to Royal Scandals and The Pocket Guide to Political Scandals, both by Andy Hughes

Ellis Wasson offers one of the first comprehensive studies of the European ruling class during the 19th and 20th centuries. Distilling a wealth of recent research, Wasson analyses the role of aristocracy in modern times, focusing on the tensions that exist between egalitarian values and the way elites shape society. Wasson explodes myths and jettisons stereotypes in sweeping coverage that takes the story from the Congress of Vienna to Stalingrad. The study recounts the change from the genteel world of court balls to Café Society and finally on to Eurotrash. It also contrasts the paradox of continued aristocratic social power and cultural leadership with the gradual decline in their political authority. Aristocracy and the Modern World covers key topics, such as: - The fabulous wealth of the great magnates - The relationship between servants and masters - Interaction with the middle classes - Concepts of honour - Culture, recreation and gender - Local authority and national power. Lively and authoritative, the book reviews developments in Scandinavia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, France, Italy and Spain as well as in Britain, Germany and Russia. It is essential reading for all those with an interest in modern European history.

"Aristocrat" and "The Community" are dialogues that take place among friends through the course of a night. "Aristocrat" is concerned with what it means to want to rule, with the comparison of aristocracy to democracy, and with duty. The friends begin by touching upon excellence, aristocracy's traditional claim to rule. They soon come to question whether there are in fact but two true claims to rule - force, or a system of belief. In addition they ponder their commitment to "the cause," a potentially transpolitical cause. "Aristocrat" attempts to answer several "whats" - what is "the cause," what does it involve, and what does it mean to serve. "The Community" attempts to demonstrate a "how" - how to create the new city, a new city determined to set itself apart from the outside world. Discussions of the degree to which quality can be controlled from above, and debates over the degree of control versus freedom that would make the city an ideal place to live, are interwoven with a concern for viability - represented by the Bank, whose interests it seems must always be taken into account. Is the creation of an ideal community an effort that is doomed to be utopian?