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Five Thousand Years of Monarchy
Offers a sweeping, entertaining journey through the real power structures of world history
Five Thousand Years of Monarchy challenges everything you thought you knew about political history. With wit, clarity, and a deep command of historical detail, Michael Arnheim reframes five millennia of global governance through a strikingly original the idea that every government, from ancient Sumer to modern China, is either a monarchy or an oligarchy—regardless of its name or apparent ideology. This provocative framework reveals insights into some of history's greatest puzzles and personalities, from the Roman emperors to Castro's Cuba, Augustus to Queen Victoria, and from Louis XVI's missed opportunity to the untold powers of King Philip II.
Drawing on lively anecdotes, surprising facts, and colorful historical vignettes, Arnheim brings the power struggles of the past vividly to life. Why was Imperial China more stable than any modern democracy? Could World War I have been avoided by more autocracy? And why are aristocracies more hostile to monarchs than revolutions ever were? Engaging, opinionated, and highly readable, Five Thousand Years of Monarchy offers a powerful reminder that what really matters in politics isn't titles or constitutions—it's who holds the power, and how.
Presenting a bold and original reinterpretation of world history through the lens of power structure, Five Thousand Years of
Distills all governments—ancient and modern—into just two essential monarchy or oligarchy Provides a global scope, covering rulers and regimes from every major civilization Reveals little-known historical facts, such as King Philip II of Spain's reign as King of England Offers original, counterintuitive takes on major events such as the French Revolution and World War I Explores the surprising longevity and success of the Roman and Chinese empires Challenges conventional narratives and political assumptions with evidence-based analysis Written in an engaging, accessible, and often humorous style, Five Thousand Years of Monarchy is ideal for general readers with an interest in history, politics, or leadership, as well as students and instructors in History, Classics, and Political Science.
Five Thousand Years of Monarchy challenges everything you thought you knew about political history. With wit, clarity, and a deep command of historical detail, Michael Arnheim reframes five millennia of global governance through a strikingly original the idea that every government, from ancient Sumer to modern China, is either a monarchy or an oligarchy—regardless of its name or apparent ideology. This provocative framework reveals insights into some of history's greatest puzzles and personalities, from the Roman emperors to Castro's Cuba, Augustus to Queen Victoria, and from Louis XVI's missed opportunity to the untold powers of King Philip II.
Drawing on lively anecdotes, surprising facts, and colorful historical vignettes, Arnheim brings the power struggles of the past vividly to life. Why was Imperial China more stable than any modern democracy? Could World War I have been avoided by more autocracy? And why are aristocracies more hostile to monarchs than revolutions ever were? Engaging, opinionated, and highly readable, Five Thousand Years of Monarchy offers a powerful reminder that what really matters in politics isn't titles or constitutions—it's who holds the power, and how.
Presenting a bold and original reinterpretation of world history through the lens of power structure, Five Thousand Years of
Distills all governments—ancient and modern—into just two essential monarchy or oligarchy Provides a global scope, covering rulers and regimes from every major civilization Reveals little-known historical facts, such as King Philip II of Spain's reign as King of England Offers original, counterintuitive takes on major events such as the French Revolution and World War I Explores the surprising longevity and success of the Roman and Chinese empires Challenges conventional narratives and political assumptions with evidence-based analysis Written in an engaging, accessible, and often humorous style, Five Thousand Years of Monarchy is ideal for general readers with an interest in history, politics, or leadership, as well as students and instructors in History, Classics, and Political Science.
480 pages, Paperback
Published September 23, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 16, 2026
This is not just a book charting the origins and institutions of monarchy, although parts of it are organized this way. Working off of elite theory, it seeks to prove that throughout recorded history, there has essentially been only two forms of government, no matter what they call themselves, because of their underlying power structures– oligarchy, sometimes aristocratic-oligarchy, and monarchy. Democracy has never existed and likely never will.
This task is immediately complicated by the fact that, while the section on terms lovingly details different forms of monarchy and makes it clear that Arnheim does not condone calling people heretics, no definition is provided for “democracy”, a term whose meaning has loosened enough that the deliberately non-democratic United States can be hailed as a democracy. How can you argue something doesn’t exist if you don’t define it? Although Arnheim’s argument that most modern representative democracies are not really democratic in the way the word is commonly understood is something most readers in these difficult times will probably agree with, more often he uses Athenian democracy as a punching bag. While Athenian democracy was not perfectly equal, even excluding the small amount of people able to participate, calling it (or at least the Periclean age, which is given as 495-429 BC; I had no idea Pericles was such a precocious baby) a popular monarchy at least partially because Thucydides said so is borderline farcical. Not helping is that, during many sections but especially the classical ones, Arnheim mostly uses/argues with works written in the twentieth-century, thus positioning himself against opinions that are not currently held.
It is difficult for one person to provide in-depth and accurate coverage of 5000 years of history, but given the goal of the book, it is definitely notable that geographical coverage is far from exhaustive. Most egregious is the complete lack of any indigenous American societies, either pre-contact or after, when discussion of the unique Haudenosaunee political system would have been especially important given Arnheim’s views on democracies and republics. Similarly, ancient participatory systems are limited to the Greeks and Romans, without consideration of republican and democratic/proto-democratic societies found in Phoenicia and some places in Mesopotamia. The book’s universalizing claims also do not align well with the reality that there are some places in recorded history, notably Minoan Crete which is never mentioned, where nobody knows what kind of government existed (in Minoan Crete’s case, the common opinions are aristocracy, theocracy, or some combination; this actually would have bolstered Arnheim’s case!). Even looking just at the small number of societies examined, there are chapters that examine one or two of them much more rigorously than the others, even when the chapter itself (like the one on marriage, which is hyper-focused on Britain) is not important to the broader thesis.
This book is not a polemic, but Arnheim clearly has an axe to grind against his fellow historians, who he often criticizes by name and multiple times. His critiques of other historians often lead him into tangents irrelevant to the book, and combined with not infrequently resorting to narrative in lieu of analysis, the book lacks focus and cohesion, not to mention chronology. Some of his attacks, like those against Mary Beard, are to me misrepresentations of what they are trying to say (Beard’s claim that Pompey should be considered the first Roman emperor is simply an acknowledgement that his abnormal career and honours provided a precedent for others, a point that is not particularly controversial). The worst example is probably when he refers to Quentin Skinner’s take on a passage of Machiavelli, who Arnheim himself refers to as an acknowledged authority on the man, as “insipid”. One of the main things Arnheim chastises other historians for is bias and partisanship inappropriate for academics, and he says that people and eras should not be considered purely “good” or “bad”. There is much merit in this, but Arnheim doesn’t follow it; to name just one, in one chapter he criticizes Mary I’s “barbarism” in persecuting Protestants, but in the next paragraph praises the abilities of Elizabeth I, who persecuted Catholics, decimated Ireland, and got England involved in the transatlantic slave trade.
There are also several errors throughout the book, and while some of them were probably just editing mistakes, others are more fundamental. Julius Caesar was made dictator perpetuo in 44 BC, not 49; the battle of Pharsalus was fought in August, at least in our calendar; the pre-Sullan Roman dictatorship was not monarchical because it did not suspend institutions like the popular assemblies and because most dictators were appointed for innocuous reasons like overseeing elections in the absence of the consuls; Spartan women were not the only Greek women who could hold property in their own names, although I appreciated that he at least thought of them, since he is otherwise mostly blind to women unless they were queens; and while there are genuine differences between pagan and Abrahamic views of other religions, the case for the pre-Christian Roman world being religiously tolerant relies on citing Gibbon 200 years late, arguing that examples of religious persecution were either not really religious persecution or not that bad, and misrepresenting the destruction of the Serapeum by omitting all of the context behind it. This is especially notable because it is one scholar’s overly pro-Christianity stance that prompts Arnheim to state that such language and prejudice has no place in an academic work. It seems that Arnheim is just upset that it does not reflect the prejudice that he holds.
While some of Arnheim’s points, especially on more modern societies, are perceptive, this book is unlikely to change anyone’s minds anytime soon.
This task is immediately complicated by the fact that, while the section on terms lovingly details different forms of monarchy and makes it clear that Arnheim does not condone calling people heretics, no definition is provided for “democracy”, a term whose meaning has loosened enough that the deliberately non-democratic United States can be hailed as a democracy. How can you argue something doesn’t exist if you don’t define it? Although Arnheim’s argument that most modern representative democracies are not really democratic in the way the word is commonly understood is something most readers in these difficult times will probably agree with, more often he uses Athenian democracy as a punching bag. While Athenian democracy was not perfectly equal, even excluding the small amount of people able to participate, calling it (or at least the Periclean age, which is given as 495-429 BC; I had no idea Pericles was such a precocious baby) a popular monarchy at least partially because Thucydides said so is borderline farcical. Not helping is that, during many sections but especially the classical ones, Arnheim mostly uses/argues with works written in the twentieth-century, thus positioning himself against opinions that are not currently held.
It is difficult for one person to provide in-depth and accurate coverage of 5000 years of history, but given the goal of the book, it is definitely notable that geographical coverage is far from exhaustive. Most egregious is the complete lack of any indigenous American societies, either pre-contact or after, when discussion of the unique Haudenosaunee political system would have been especially important given Arnheim’s views on democracies and republics. Similarly, ancient participatory systems are limited to the Greeks and Romans, without consideration of republican and democratic/proto-democratic societies found in Phoenicia and some places in Mesopotamia. The book’s universalizing claims also do not align well with the reality that there are some places in recorded history, notably Minoan Crete which is never mentioned, where nobody knows what kind of government existed (in Minoan Crete’s case, the common opinions are aristocracy, theocracy, or some combination; this actually would have bolstered Arnheim’s case!). Even looking just at the small number of societies examined, there are chapters that examine one or two of them much more rigorously than the others, even when the chapter itself (like the one on marriage, which is hyper-focused on Britain) is not important to the broader thesis.
This book is not a polemic, but Arnheim clearly has an axe to grind against his fellow historians, who he often criticizes by name and multiple times. His critiques of other historians often lead him into tangents irrelevant to the book, and combined with not infrequently resorting to narrative in lieu of analysis, the book lacks focus and cohesion, not to mention chronology. Some of his attacks, like those against Mary Beard, are to me misrepresentations of what they are trying to say (Beard’s claim that Pompey should be considered the first Roman emperor is simply an acknowledgement that his abnormal career and honours provided a precedent for others, a point that is not particularly controversial). The worst example is probably when he refers to Quentin Skinner’s take on a passage of Machiavelli, who Arnheim himself refers to as an acknowledged authority on the man, as “insipid”. One of the main things Arnheim chastises other historians for is bias and partisanship inappropriate for academics, and he says that people and eras should not be considered purely “good” or “bad”. There is much merit in this, but Arnheim doesn’t follow it; to name just one, in one chapter he criticizes Mary I’s “barbarism” in persecuting Protestants, but in the next paragraph praises the abilities of Elizabeth I, who persecuted Catholics, decimated Ireland, and got England involved in the transatlantic slave trade.
There are also several errors throughout the book, and while some of them were probably just editing mistakes, others are more fundamental. Julius Caesar was made dictator perpetuo in 44 BC, not 49; the battle of Pharsalus was fought in August, at least in our calendar; the pre-Sullan Roman dictatorship was not monarchical because it did not suspend institutions like the popular assemblies and because most dictators were appointed for innocuous reasons like overseeing elections in the absence of the consuls; Spartan women were not the only Greek women who could hold property in their own names, although I appreciated that he at least thought of them, since he is otherwise mostly blind to women unless they were queens; and while there are genuine differences between pagan and Abrahamic views of other religions, the case for the pre-Christian Roman world being religiously tolerant relies on citing Gibbon 200 years late, arguing that examples of religious persecution were either not really religious persecution or not that bad, and misrepresenting the destruction of the Serapeum by omitting all of the context behind it. This is especially notable because it is one scholar’s overly pro-Christianity stance that prompts Arnheim to state that such language and prejudice has no place in an academic work. It seems that Arnheim is just upset that it does not reflect the prejudice that he holds.
While some of Arnheim’s points, especially on more modern societies, are perceptive, this book is unlikely to change anyone’s minds anytime soon.
February 5, 2026
well written although I don't agree with his conservative views.
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February 12, 2026review text for 3248
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews