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Dwindling Links to Monarchies Past |
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Published by The New York Times
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Monday, 23 July 2007 |
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Dwindling Links to Monarchies Past “For most of the history of Western civilization, there hardly was any such thing as a former king. Their reigns generally lasted until they died, peaceably or otherwise, and it was axiomatic that if you wanted to depose one, you’d better kill him; merely lock him up or chase him away, and a lot of people would go on regarding him, not you, as the rightful monarch, causing no end of ensuing bother. But the death of Mohammad Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, reminds The Lede that in recent decades, former monarchs had actually gotten to be pretty thick on the ground in the 20th Century, as war and revolution redrew the world map and created and erased kingdoms at a remarkable clip. And now they are getting scarce again…”
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