Scholarship
Anthropology, sociology, and ethology as well as various other disciplines such as political science attempt to explain the rise of absolute monarchy ranging from extrapolation generally, to Marxist explanations in terms of the class struggle as the underlying dynamic of human historical development generally and absolute monarchy in particular.
According to Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process, monarchs such as Louis XIV could enjoy such great power because of the then structure of the societies: more precisely, they could play off against each other two rival classes, namely the rising bourgeoisie, who grew wealthy from commerce and industrial production, and the nobility, who lived off the land and administrative functions.
Read more about this topic: Absolute Monarchy
Famous quotes containing the word scholarship:
“Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.”
—Walter Pater (18391894)
“American universities are organized on the principle of the nuclear rather than the extended family. Graduate students are grimly trained to be technicians rather than connoisseurs. The old German style of universal scholarship has gone.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)