Sign-In
Cart
Psychopaths in Togas: How Power Broke the Minds of Emperors
Paperback
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN13: 9798187765829
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jul 17 2026
Pages: 342
Weight: 1.01
Height: 0.71 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jul 17 2026
Pages: 342
Weight: 1.01
Height: 0.71 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
No hominid was ever built to rule an empire. The equipment we carry for reading a face, keeping a promise, fearing the disapproval of the people around us, and feeling another person's pain was forged for groups small enough that everyone knew everyone. Take that ancient apparatus, seat it above millions, and cut away every correction the group once supplied, and the mind does not rise to the occasion. It deforms - and it deforms in the same direction every time.
The madness of emperors has usually been explained two ways: as bad luck, an unlucky run of disturbed men, or as bad character, thrones acting as magnets for the already-broken. This book makes a colder and more interesting case. The deformation is neither accident nor magnet. It is the predictable output of a machine. A ruler is an estimator running open-loop: absolute power severs the four feedback channels - honest report, collective sanction, real equals, and proportionate fear - that keep any mind calibrated, and an uncorrected estimator does not merely wobble. It diverges. Delusion where honest report was cut, appetite where sanction vanished, self-worship where equals were abolished, and paranoia that eats itself where suppression begins to manufacture the very danger it answers.
Drawing on the anthropology of the small band, the neuroscience of what power does to the empathic brain, the clinical portrait of acquired hubris, and the long comparative record of thrones from Rome to imperial China to the Ottoman cage of princes, this book shows why the same silhouette recurs in cultures that never spoke to one another. It treats the hostile ancient chroniclers with the suspicion they have earned - and shows that the argument survives the discount, because it stands on mechanism and recurrence, not gossip. The closing turn is the useful one: every durable check on power ever devised is, secretly, a feedback controller. The togas were always going to change nothing about the ape. Only the corrections could.
The book is based on academic paper: Kriger, P. (2026). The Uncorrected Sovereign: Feedback Severance and the Predictable Deformation of Cognition Under Absolute Power. IIIR Computational Humanities and Cultural Systems. https: //doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21416922
Keywords: power, empire, human nature, psychology of leadership, evolutionary mismatch, tyranny, Roman emperors
Drawing on the anthropology of the small band, the neuroscience of what power does to the empathic brain, the clinical portrait of acquired hubris, and the long comparative record of thrones from Rome to imperial China to the Ottoman cage of princes, this book shows why the same silhouette recurs in cultures that never spoke to one another. It treats the hostile ancient chroniclers with the suspicion they have earned - and shows that the argument survives the discount, because it stands on mechanism and recurrence, not gossip. The closing turn is the useful one: every durable check on power ever devised is, secretly, a feedback controller. The togas were always going to change nothing about the ape. Only the corrections could.
The book is based on academic paper: Kriger, P. (2026). The Uncorrected Sovereign: Feedback Severance and the Predictable Deformation of Cognition Under Absolute Power. IIIR Computational Humanities and Cultural Systems. https: //doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21416922
Keywords: power, empire, human nature, psychology of leadership, evolutionary mismatch, tyranny, Roman emperors
Also from
Kriger, Peter
Pourquoi La Révolution Industrielle n'A-T-Elle Pas EU Lieu Dans l'Antiquité ?
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$32.78
A Theory of the Cinematic Masterpiece in the Generative Era: Temporal Sovereignty, the Carriers of Density, and Why Technical Progress Makes Art Deare
Kriger, Boris
Kriger, Peter
Halushko, Denys
Paperback
$13.20
Rome Didn't Fall - It Just Changed Servers: Why We Can't Stop Thinking about the Roman Empire
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$28.80
La Guerre a Besoin de Gens Bien: Comment Nos Meilleurs Instincts Rendent Les Massacres Possibles
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$34.68
La Guerra Necesita Gente Buena: Cómo Nuestros Mejores Instintos Hacen Posibles Las Masacres
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$33.29
The Evolution of Money: From Seashells to Bitcoin-Why We Trust Stuff That Isn't Real
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$30.00
Peter Kriger Roma No Cayó, Solo Cambió de Servidor: Por Qué No Podemos Dejar de Pensar En El Imperio Romano
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$27.85
Roma Non È Caduta, Ha Solo Cambiato Server: Perché Non Riusciamo a Smettere Di Pensare All'impero Romano
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$30.25
Rome Is Niet Gevallen, Het Heeft Alleen de Servers Veranderd: Waarom We Maar Blijven Denken Aan Het Romeinse Rijk
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$27.50
ROM Ist Nicht Untergegangen - Es Hat Nur Den Server Gewechselt: Warum ROM Immer Noch Unser Betriebssystem Ist
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$27.85
The Medieval Internet: How Monasteries Stored and Transmitted Europe's Memory
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$20.40
Fake News Before News Existed: How Rumor Ran the World for Four Thousand Years
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$26.40
The Persian Empire's Impossible Experiment: How to Rule the World Without Making Everyone Persian
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$27.60
The First Cancelled Celebrities: How Reputation Was Destroyed Before the Internet
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$26.40
Hannibal at the Gates: What If Carthage Had Won and Rome Became a Historical Footnote?
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$21.60
The Empire Built on Rubber: How a Bicycle Craze Helped Create the Caoutchouc Catastrophe
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$21.60
The Barbarian Startup: How Germanic Tribes Bought, Borrowed, and Stole an Empire
Kriger, Peter
Paperback
$21.60
Also in
General World History
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
$10.99
Titanic: The Ship Magnificent - Volume Two: Interior Design and Fitting Out
Braunschweiger, Art
Hall, Steve
Beveridge, Bruce
Hardcover
$84.50
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
$236.28
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
From $12.99
A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960
Van Slyck, Abigail A.
Hardcover
$12.99
Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book
Bittman, Mark
Hardcover
$10.99
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
$10.99
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Loewen, James W.
Paperback
$9.99
The Allies: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II
Groom, Winston
Paperback
From $9.99
Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
McNeill, J. R.
Paperback
$10.99
Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War
Wise, James E.
Baron, Scott
Hardcover
$8.99
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
Green, John
Hardcover
$25.20
The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail
Dolin, Eric Jay
Hardcover
From $19.99
1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World
Ahamed, Liaquat
Hardcover
$28.80
American Pope: Leo XIV's Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City
Burke, Daniel
Detrow, Scott
Hardcover
$29.69
Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution
Kiernan, Denise
Hardcover
$28.80
The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy
Ross, Steven J.
Hardcover
$29.69
100 Bible Verses That Made America: Defining Moments That Shaped Our Enduring Foundation of Faith
Morgan, Robert J.
Paperback
$21.84
Freedom's Daughters: How a Generation of Black Women Resisted Oppression Through Literacy and Education
Headlee, Celeste
Hardcover
$27.89
How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy's Guide to Silencing Women
Venditozzi, Zoe
Mitchell, Claire
Paperback
$17.09
How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words
Galer, Sophia Smith
Hardcover
$28.80
The Phantom: The Untold Story of the American Marine the Nazis Could Not Kill
Drury, Bob
Clavin, Tom
Hardcover
$31.35
The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery
Tiffany, Kaitlyn
Hardcover
$31.50
The East Wing: Power, Intrigue, and the Untold Story of America's First Ladies
Moaveni, Azadeh
Hardcover
$31.35
1,000 Days in America: An Illustrated History of the Moments That Defined a Nation
National Geographic
Hardcover
$47.50
Two Ships: Jamestown 1619, Plymouth 1620, and the Struggle for the Soul of America
Reynolds, David S.
Hardcover
$31.50
True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color--From Azure to Zinc Pink
Stamper, Kory
Hardcover
$28.80
The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Hardcover
$27.00
Lightning Beneath the Sea: The Race to Wire the World and the Dawn of the Information Age
Tabor, James M.
Hardcover
$28.79
The Elections That Changed the World: Fifteen Pivotal Moments That Shaped How We Live
Bash, Dana
Hardcover
$30.40
A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps
Elledge, Jonn
Paperback
$17.06
Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women's Movement and the Future of American Politics
McElya, Micki
Hardcover
$30.40
The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic
Stewart, Lindsey
Hardcover
From $19.99
Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America
Loeffler, James
Hardcover
$26.99
The Nuremberg Women: The Untold Story of the Eight Women Who Brought the Nazis to Justice
Livingstone, Natalie
Hardcover
$31.35
The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions That Shook the World
Pancevski, Bojan
Hardcover
$28.49
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
Sides, Hampton
Paperback
$17.10
America in 25 Revolutions: The Story of Our Imperfect Nation's 250-Year Quest to Become a More Perfect Union
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
$30.88
Socialism: The Real History from Plato to the Present: How the Deep State Capitalizes on Crises to Consolidate Control [With Paperback Book]
Federer, William J.
Paperback
$19.00
Aristocracy, American Style: Class Privilege and the Persistence of Elite Power
Isenberg, Nancy
Hardcover
$36.10
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
Kara, Siddharth
Hardcover
$27.00
The Age of Alchemy: The Secret History of Chemistry from Ancient Magic to Modern Science
Chapman, Kit
Hardcover
$28.45
The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic
Stewart, Lindsey
Paperback
$20.89
When America Roared: How the 1980s Saved, Then Broke, the Country--And Led Us to Today
Kaufman, Jonathan
Hardcover
$31.50
The Summer of Death: The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern-Day America
Williams, Geoff
Hardcover
$33.25
No One's Coming: The Rogue Heroes Our Government Turns to When There's Nowhere Else to Turn
Hazzard, Kevin
Hardcover
$28.50
On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World
Hazrat, Florence
Hardcover
$28.80
The Bookshop: A History of Bookselling from the Dawn of Print to the Twenty-First Century
Pettegree, Andrew
Hardcover
$28.80
The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within Us Slave Culture
Woodard, Vincent
Paperback
$56.55
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
McGilchrist, Iain
Paperback
$21.80
Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City
Brown, Kate
Hardcover
$28.79