On Kings is a collaborative work by anthropologists David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins that addresses the question of kingship.
The book opens with a reflection on kingship, noting that it might be the most common political system in human history and is fundamentally religious in nature.
[1] It is also described as a political system that is very difficult to abolish, with most modern revolutions merely transferring the attributes of monarchy into the framework of popular sovereignty.
[1] In the book, Graeber, influenced by Sahlins, his mentor, argues that:[2] humans have traditionally, and even into modern times, understood their existence within political systems involving and intertwined with "metahuman persons"—that is, spirits, gods, demons, superheroes, goblins, elves, and a range of entities that behave more or less like people but possess powers distinct from those of ordinary humans, sometimes far exceeding them.The anthropologist also takes a stand on controversial points in political anthropology;[3] he argues that kingship draws inspiration from the celestial world, rather than the other way around, following Hocart.
[3] Graeber and Sahlins propose the hypothesis that the use of ancestors and divine agents to legitimize and consolidate power is a universal tendency among rulers.