ACCIDENTAL GODS

Sub-titled 'On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine', from Haile Selassie, acclaimed as the Living God in Jamaica, to Prince Philip, who became the unlikely centre of a new religion on a South Pacific island, men made divine - only men - have appeared on almost every continent. More than curiosities, these deifications, always emerging at times of civil war, imperial conquest, or revolution, have much to teach us. From nationalist uprisings in India to Nigerian spirit-possession cults, Anna Della Subin explores how deification has been a means of defiance for colonised peoples. Conversely, we see how Christopher Columbus, Cortés, and other white explorers amplified stories of their godhead to justify their dominion over native peoples, setting into motion the currents of racism. A revelatory history spanning five centuries which sheds light on the thorny questions of how our modern concept of religion was invented, why religion and politics are perpetually entangled in our supposedly secular age, and how the power to call someone divine has been used and abused, the tales told here are often colourful and bizarre, and often melancholy, and all told with tremendous intellectual ingenuity. 462pp.