In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Crown of Aragon was a rapidly expanding and powerful political unit with an original form of representative government. Throughout this period a series of energetic and talented rulers sought to maintain royal authority and govern their realms effectively. Their persuasive rhetoric, and that of their advisers, is preserved in the archives of the Crown of Aragon in Barcelona, which provide a rich and under-exploited vein of source material for historians. There are long letters to their subjects, historical works, and the proceedings of the cortes, where the kings and queens perusaded their reluctant subjects to grant taxes and to support their decisions. Suzanne F. Cawsey examines the tradition of royal eloquence, thereby illuminating the nature of political discourse and persuasion in medieval Aragon and exploring the key ideas shared by the king and the political classes of the kingdom.

This book explores the aspiration to universal, imperial rule across Eurasian history from antiquity to the eighteenth century.

In this book, Mehmet-Ali Ataç argues that the palace reliefs of the Neo-Assyrian Empire hold a meaning deeper than simple imperial propaganda.

Oliver Cromwell had not a drop of royal blood in him. Yet in 1657, prompted by the political chaos that followed the execution of Charles I and inspired by a belief that a return to monarchy was the only way to stabilize the nation, parliament offered Cromwell the crown of Britain. In Perceptions of a Monarchy without a King, Benjamin Woodford explores how factions both inside and outside of government reacted to this unprecedented event. Moving away from a biographical focus on Cromwell, Woodford looks to the print culture of the period to examine kingship and the Cromwellian regime as a complex phenomenon that elicited diverse reactions - from broadly in favour to dead-set against. Woodford analyzes Cromwell's speeches along with propaganda, newspapers, poetry, republican writings, and the works of religious sects. The fact that many of these writings were produced by men and women who were not members of the government demonstrates that both politicians and the general public were interested in the topics of Cromwell and kingship. Cromwell's military and political power rendered him a candidate for kingship, but even with his record of achievement, the offer of the crown to a non-nobleman was controversial. Perceptions of a Monarchy without a King reveals the entire nation's responses to the kingship debates while simultaneously illustrating the persistence of the monarchy in the 1650s.

”O God we thank thee” was sung in the churches of France and Sweden after military victories in the seventeenth century. To celebrate Thanksgiving was a way of thanking God, but also a way for the rulers to legitimize the ever ongoing wars. For the inhabitants it was both an occasion for festivity and a way of getting information about what happened in the battlefield. Yet the image given was selective. Bloody defeats and uneventful everyday life was replaced by spectacular victories and royal glory. Even though the rituals in the two countries were similar in some ways, there were also substantial differences. The propaganda formulated a narrative about what war actually was, and what role the rulers and their subjects should play. In the crisis of 1709 this narrative was profoundly challenged. The book investigates how war events were communicated to the inhabitants of France and Sweden in the seventeenth century by the Church, and especially through days of thanksgiving (called Te Deum in France).

Scholars have long known that the Egyptian Ptolemaic monarchy underwent a transformation between 323 and 30 BC, but the details of this change have proven problematic. This book presents a clear argument based on the author's theories.