King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership [Hardcover]

Arnold M. Ludwig (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2002

People may choose to ignore their animal heritage by interpreting their behavior as divinely inspired, socially purposeful, or even self-serving, all of which they attribute to being human, but they masticate, fornicate, and procreate, much as chimps and apes do, so they should have little cause to get upset if they learn that they act like other primates when they politically agitate, debate, abdicate, placate, and administrate, too." -- from the book King of the Mountain presents the startling findings of Arnold M. Ludwig's eighteen-year investigation into why people want to rule. The answer may seem obvious -- power, privilege, and perks -- but any adequate answer also needs to explain why so many rulers cling to power even when they are miserable, trust nobody, feel besieged, and face almost certain death. Ludwig's results suggest that leaders of nations tend to act remarkably like monkeys and apes in the way they come to power, govern, and rule. Profiling every ruler of a recognized country in the twentieth century -- over 1,900 people in all­­, Ludwig establishes how rulers came to power, how they lost power, the dangers they faced, and the odds of their being assassinated, committing suicide, or dying a natural death. Then, concentrating on a smaller sub-set of 377 rulers for whom more extensive personal information was available, he compares six different kinds of leaders, examining their characteristics, their childhoods, and their mental stability or instability to identify the main predictors of later political success. Ludwig's penetrating observations, though presented in a lighthearted and entertaining way, offer important insight into why humans have engaged in war throughout recorded history as well as suggesting how they might live together in peace.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Applying the insights of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology to political leadership, University of Kentucky emeritus professor of psychiatry Arnold M. Ludwig (How Do We Know Who We Are?) in King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership compares human rulers to primates, arguing that male politicians, like their simian alpha-male cohorts, are adept at gaining, exercising and keeping power. Ludwig then focuses closely on 377 world leaders, including Idi Amin, Tony Blair, Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan examining a string of traits to identify what he considers the factors that determine a leader's greatness: the addition of new territory, military prowess, economic prosperity, etc. Although Ludwig presents exhaustive research, many of his assumptions such as that all societies want a ruler because it's the natural order of things lack support. Moreover, Ludwig quickly loses sight of his (somewhat shaky) thesis that human politicians derive their leadership drive from their primate ancestors. 29 b&w illus.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"The author measures each [leader] on an index of political greatness and explores the common predilection toward conflict and war. This book will serve readers at all levels." -- Choice

"Every single page contains something striking and thought-provoking." -- Fortean Times

"World politics is made by world leaders. These men (very few are women), who love to present themselves as having their people's interests at heart, are driven by the same desire for power recognized by every primatologist as a universal alpha male characteristic. Based on nearly two thousand profiles of political leaders, King of the Mountain drives this point home as no other book before." -- Frans B. M. de Waal, author of Chimpanzee Politics

"A unique and important contribution.... The insights and analyses have far-reaching consequences to all fields of human endeavor, especially to politics.... Clear, cogent, and at times laced with humor." -- George Schaller, Wildlife Conservation Society

"An enjoyable book. The statistical tables alone are worth the price." -- Journal of the American Medical Association

"There is a richness to Ludwig's approach that is very appealing." -- Leadership

"A scholarly attempt to measure political leadership with the cool objectivity of science." -- New York Times

"A thoroughly enjoyable read.... Ludwig's eye for an anecdote is a good one, and provides much pleasure." -- Nth Position

"Well-written, engaging, insightful.... Ludwig's book makes a bona fide contribution to the study of leadership." -- Rhetoric and Public Affairs

"An arresting book that casts political science out the window and explains leadership through comparisons with chimpanzees, baboons, and gorillas." -- Washington Post Book World

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky; First Edition edition (May 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813122333
• ISBN-13: 978-0813122335
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #821,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why Men Rule, January 10, 2003

By 

Larry Arnhart (DeKalb, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership (Hardcover)

It is surprising that the proponents of evolutionary psychology have not paid more attention to this book. Ludwig argues that the human desire to be the supreme political ruler is rooted in the same biological nature that supports the dominance of alpha males among monkeys and apes. He supports this argument with analysis of the 1,941 chief executive rulers of the independent countries in the 20th century. He illustrates his points with lively anecdotes from the lives of the 377 rulers for whom he had sufficient biographical information.

Of the many interesting points that he makes, one is that he can explain one of the universal traits of human politics--that the highest positions of political rule tend to be filled predominantly by men. Political scientists rarely acknowledge--much less explain--this remarkable pattern of male dominance. Ludwig explains it as a manifestation of male primate tendencies rooted in the neurophysiology of the male as shaped by natural selection in evolutionary history. (Surprisingly, Ludwig does not mention Steven Goldberg's book WHY MEN RULE, which makes a similar argument.)

There is one bright spot in Ludwig's otherwise dark vision of politics dominated by Machiavellian brutality--he shows that democratic leaders in established democracies act with more restraint than those in other kinds of regimes. He doesn't explain this. But he could have argued that even this has biological roots by appealing to Christopher Boehm's claim (in his book HIERARCHY IN THE FOREST) that there is a biological basis not only for the natural desire for dominance but also for the natural desire to resist dominance, and that modern democracy expresses that ambivalent political nature by allowing ambitious individuals to compete for high office within the constraints of constitutional structures that protect subordinates from being exploited.

I have developed some of these points in my book DARWINIAN NATURAL RIGHT: THE BIOLOGICAL ETHICS OF HUMAN NATURE.

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A contemporary update of Machiavelli, June 10, 2002

By 

David D. Yang (Alexandria, VA, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership (Hardcover)

Despite its hard science dressings, this book is primarily a popular (versus academic) account of modern political leadership. Although Dr. Ludwig is obviously knowledgable about psychology, the scientific discourse in this book is kept to a minimum. Mostly, the book consists of a series of highly entertaining anecdotes about famous political figures, collected to support his thesis that political greatness equates possesing the characteristics of the "Alpha Male". The acceptability of this amoralistic conception of "greatness" - where Mao and FDR are co-ranked the greatest modern political leaders with Stalin a close second - is up to each reader to decide.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Monumental, April 7, 2005

By 

Steven Rubenzer (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership (Hardcover)

This is one of the most ambitious and interesting works I've ever seen. The author, apparently on his own and without institutional backing, took on the study of political leadership and addressed it empirically, coding 182 features of different leaders during the 20th century. Although replete with entertaining anecdotes, the book is based on statistical analyses that are presented in a clear and intuitive manner. There are literaly hundreds if not thousands of new facts and observations. By examining so many leaders and identiying types, he shows that individuals such as Hitler are not mere anomolies but share common traits - independance of interests, excellent memories, supreme confidence in their own vision, etc. This book is similar in approach to my own (Personality, Character, and Leadership in the White House) but extends analysis to leaders in all sorts of governments. My only complaint is that some of the metholdogy underying the study could be more fully explained (for example, how many raters provided jdugments on personality traits and how these were defined?), but most readers will not miss this. A tour de force.