The Good Kings

Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World

By: Kara Cooney

Narrated by: Kara Cooney

Written in the tradition of historians like Stacy Schiff and Amanda Foreman who find modern lessons in ancient history, this provocative narrative explores the lives of five remarkable pharaohs who ruled Egypt with absolute power, shining a new light on the country's 3,000-year empire and its meaning today.

In a new era when democracies around the world are threatened or crumbling, best-selling author Kara Cooney turns to five ancient Egyptian pharaohs - Khufu, Senwosret III, Akenhaten, Ramses II, and Taharqa - to understand why many so often give up power to the few, and what it can mean for our future. As the first centralized political power on earth, the pharaohs and their process of divine kingship can tell us a lot about the world's politics, past and present. Every animal-headed god, every monumental temple, every pyramid, every tomb offers extraordinary insight into a culture that combined deeply held religious beliefs with uniquely human schemes to justify a system in which one ruled over many. From Khufu, the man who built the Great Pyramid at Giza as testament to his authoritarian reign, and Taharqa, the last true pharaoh who worked to make Egypt great again, we discover a clear lens into understanding how power was earned, controlled, and manipulated in ancient times. And in mining the past, Cooney uncovers the reason why societies have so willingly chosen a dictator over democracy, time and time again.

©2021 Kara Cooney (P)2021 National Geographic

interesting and informative

3 stars - I liked it

In this book Cooney discusses five ancient Egyptian pharaohs: Khufu, Senworsret III, Akenhaten, Ramses II, and Taharqa. She talks about their reigns and how they ruled. She also discusses the patriarchy and how it influenced these men and continues to influence us today.

After reading Cooney’s previous two books, I was excited to get my hands on this one. I learned a lot about the women rulers of Egypt in the previous books and knew I would learn a lot in this book as well. I did learn a lot about these pharaohs but also about how their authoritarian regime impacted the future and is still impacting it today.

It was fascinating learning the history of these men. They may be praised as great men but that didn’t mean they didn’t do terrible things. One thing I like about Cooney’s writing is that she doesn’t ignore the evidence that some of these men were most likely tyrants, had slaves, and were harsh to their people.

Khufu is the builder of the Great Pyramid but he was a tyrant and there is evidence of that. Senworset III was great at propaganda and used it to establish supremacy over Egypt’s elite, but it quickly fell apart after he died. Akhenaten created a new religion centering around one god that allowed him to control everything in his kingdom. It didn’t last though and had destabilizing effects on that dynasty. Ramses the Great spread his image throughout Egypt and is still widely known today because of it. His reign was long and filled with many wild stories about his reign, some of which are still believed today. Taharqa used religious zeal to unify Egypt and justify his actions as just and moral, even when they weren’t.

She compares these ancient rulers to today's leaders and shows that while we have made some changes, there is still a lot of dismantling that needs to be done of the patriarchy if things will ever get better. Overall, this was interesting and gives a unique look at patriarchy in the past and present.

Everyone Should Read This!

brilliant take on politics & culture, from ancient kingdoms to modern despots & demagogues, with a note of hope at the end that we might learn our history & not repeat it.

Interesting but repetitive

I like the idea of looking at what lenses we are viewing history with and how that definitively colors our assertions as well as how we judge our current day.

That being said I found myself easily being distracted while listening to this book as we are repeatedly told of the evils of the patriarchy. I definitely agree on some points and would love to learn more, but I was feeling brow beaten by the end.

The American political conclusions are already dated

I bought this because I liked her other works, but the heavy-handed American political conclusions are full of false equivocations and are already dated. It makes it hard to trust the political analysis about the Pharaonic rulers when the analysis about modern American politics seems to be stretched and inaccurate in places.

Great read, takes a while to get rolling

Loved the core of this book, but it took me a while to get into.

A solid right hook of a book.

Dr. Cooney pulls absolutely no punches with this amazing new book. Well respected in her field Cooney continues to expand her reputation with this no nonsense well researched piece of literature.

However if someone was hoping for a cuddly version of Egypt then they need to head to the fiction section of the library. Dr. Cooney doesn't do cuddly. She seems to know it's not her job to make us all feel better about how the systems THEN are not very different than those we see in play NOW.

She makes no apologies as she lines up some of the greatest leaders of Egypt in a frank and deep look at ancient Egyptian leadership and culture. Her comparisons to our modern day world are right on and deeply revealing. Dr. Cooney strips away the gold and gloss to provide a real and honest look at rulers we have all come to be fascinated with, providing new perspectives through the looking glass of the modern world.

This world has had thousands of books acting as PR for the powerful. This heavy hitter by Dr. Cooney is a welcome change.

This is a must read!

Anyone interested in the history of Ancient Egypts Pharaoh's needs this book in their library! She travels back in time and compares much of the Ancient Egyptian Patriarchy to today's leaders. Must read!

Thoughtful analysis of ancien Egyptian history & it’s potential lessons for our current world

At first this book was difficult to het into/adjust to compared to her earlier book, This one is definitely more of a critical analysis of the Pharaohs and patriarchy as a while. About half-way through I couldn’t put it down and ordered a used hardback copy as well. I feel this book ought to be on the reading list of all sociology, criminology, cultural anthropology and psychology courses. It made mr think of my soc advisor and friend and of recommending it to her. I graduated years ago and she’s retired now but this is a stellar collection of information put forth in a thoughtful and clearly considerate way. The only piece that’s missing is a deeper understanding and evaluation of religion and spirituality. I can tell the author is expanding her knowledge and is a thoughtful, considerate human being. I am curious to read her other works and see if her ideas and thoughts on religion and spirituality are discussed/added. Her approach still seems to not speak to her personal ideas or beliefs—yet as one of her readers by her not declaring what her bias might be religiously speaking, she is potentially separati g herself from a whole spectrum of readership separate. I feel that more than ever we need more wats to come together and for me, this means discussing fair-mindedness and openness to discussing personal spiritual thoughts. My experiences and studies lean more holistically towards bridging science, religion, spirituality—weaving those into the fabric of scientific and critical analysis of culture to gain a deeper awareness of everything that makes it to the fabric of our world life.

Kara Cooney for Pharaoh! ;)

In all seriousness, this book is a brilliantly reasoned masterpiece that could serve as a basis for a contemporaneous manifesto. As an armchair Egyptologist who knows MUCH more than the average Joe, I've held longstanding concerns voiced by Kara Cooney, who expressed them in exquisite detail and acuteness with this work.

I am shocked that this has not been reviewed more, but Kara is a woman of our time, and THIS is a brilliant book that keeps the reader/listener interested, expresses itself succinctly, and lays the patriarchy bare for the cancerous farce that it is. As human beings we have been programmed our whole lives to see the way things are as the way things should be.

Kara's place in academia is precious, and so is her worldview and insight. This book, if you listen to just ONE in the next twelve months, or pick up to read, has exceptional value culturally and socially. It's entirely relevant and beautifully illuminating. I appreciate what she is doing so much, and hope that this book becomes a cultural cornerstone in what hopefully will be a revolution to help build a better world.

I'm going to check out her podcast this evening because I love this book so much.

Looking at Ancient Egypt without the magick

I have spent some time considering what to say in this review because it is not a standard Egyptological treatise in the way that we have come to expect. It certainly made me think of the pharaonic era of Egyptian history in a new way.

The author (who reads the book exceptionally well also, I might add) is a self-described big fan of all things Ancient Egypt and has awoken in recent years to aspects of its history that have been unacknowledged by others in the field or (more to the point) deliberately ignored.

Principally this is the authoritarian rule and everything that went along with that (especially patriarchism in general) over the country’s long history. The author draws numerous and relevant comparisons to the politics of today’s world (mainly the US and other western countries) as she eloquently discusses the lives and reigns of 5 pharaonic era kings.

It is probably the first time this kind of analysis has occurred in Egyptology (it’s certainly the first I have come across) and many good arguments and discussions are made throughout the work, especially when commenting on the behaviour of the politicians ruling as kings in our current era.

To be honest, there is not a lot of what Dr. Kooney has to say that I disagree with: she is clearly an erudite academic, and, I would venture, an intellectual making a statement about a civilisation that we have as a society fallen in love with. But it is in fact these qualifications that blind her and most others in the field since it began as a discipline in the 1800’s.

The “unknown” that hangs like a great spectre over the facts and artefacts that we possess from that epoch is the other part of the equation that draws us so powerfully to pharaonic civilisation (some more than others, and I include myself in that category). In this work, I feel that this aspect has been abandoned in order to make a case for something else (authoritarianism, patriarchy and the rest).

I do not believe the word theocracy was mentioned once in the book. The author acknowledges that religion played a massive role and makes great comparisons to what is happening in the US today, but the sense of devotion to the gods and the extent of their belief in those gods that saturates the artefacts bequeathed to us gets little attention. It can not be compared to what is happening with modern religions today, I think. Is this why we can not find a word in the hieroglyphs for “religion”?

Perhaps our western minds are incapable of grasping the many ideas relating to the numinous and the spiritual that the sages of Ancient Egypt went to a lot of trouble to preserve. At least that’s what RA Schwaller de Lubicz seemed to think anyway.

I think that when we understand the ancient’s concept and relationship to deity, we find the key to getting to the bottom of that “unknown” that really draws our attention to the pharaonic era of Egypt’s history.

Victorian era Egyptology - even when given a modern slant as this book does - needs to reconsider how we approach understanding what is for me a breathtaking and mystical civilisation. Egyptology may need to engage artists, mystics, philosophers and perhaps even spiritualists to help with further understanding moving forward.