This book examines more than twenty cultures, both ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, emphasizing how kings, empires, religions and societies have enhanced their authority and power through fictional histories, claims of divine origins, fabricated genealogies, and miraculous events presented in literary works and forged doctrines.

Barry Wood has degrees from the universities of Toronto and British Columbia, and an interdisciplinary doctorate in English and American literature, humanities and religious studies from Stanford University. He teaches British and American literature at the University of Houston. His previous books include Malcolm Lowry: The Writer and His Critics.

Introduction; Prologue: Prehistoric Spirits and Personal Power; Part One, Divine Kings, Devarajas, and Sons of Heaven; 1, Divine kingship in Mesopotamia; 2, Pharaohs among the Indestructibles; 3, Kingship among the Hebrews; 4, The Deification of Roman Emperors; 5, The Deva-rajas of India and Southeast Asia; 6, The Chinese Mandate from Heaven; 7, The Japanese Imperial Cult; Part Two, Kings and Empires Before the Common Era (BCE); 8, The Legendary Prehistory of the Sumerians; 9, Legendary Kings and Empires of Pre-Classical Greece; 10, Patriarchs, Exodus, and the Epic of Israel; 11, Legendary Kings and Empires of India; 12, The Aeneid and the Legendary Founding of Rome; Part Three, Narratives of Spiritual Founders; 13, Moses: Lawgiver and Founder of Israel; 14, Buddha and Legends of Previous Buddhas; 15, The Teacher of Righteousness and Savior Narratives; 16, Muhammad, the Qur'an, and Islamic Legends; 17, The Virgin Mary through the Centuries; 18, Tonantzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe; Part Four, Kings and Empires in the Common Era (CE); 19, Narrative Forgeries of the Holy Roman Empire; 20, Shahnameh: The Epic of Kings and Alexander the Great; 21, Charlemagne: Ancestral and Campaign Fictions; 22, The Fictional Kingdom of King Arthur; 23, Kebra Negast: Ethiopian Kings and the Ark of the Covenant; 24, Elizabeth I: Narratives of the Virgin Queen; Part Five, Social and Political Order since 1450; 25, Epics of the Portuguese Seaborne Empire; 26, Discovery: The European Narrative: of Power; 27 Dekanawida and the Iroquois Federation; 28, The New England Canaan of the Puritans; 39, Marx, Capitalism, and the Classless Society; 30, Adolf Hitler's Narratives of Aryans and Jews; Epilogue: The Endangered Narrative of Liberal Democracy; Bibliography of Works Cited; Index.