Character Assassination Across the Ages : Revised and Expanded Edition with New Theory, Chapters, and Cases (Studies in Character Assassination and Reputation Protection)

Icks, Martijn (EDT)/ Shiraev, Eric B. (EDT)

Pallas Publications（2026/06発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 316 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9789048566044

Full Description

Character assassination—the deliberate destruction of an individual's reputation—has been a persistent feature of public life across time and cultures. This revised and expanded edition offers a comprehensive investigation into how reputations are attacked, damaged, and destroyed, with case studies ranging from ancient Rome to the present-day United States. Political and religious leaders, officials, celebrities, scientists, athletes, and other public figures emerge as frequent targets, with their private lives, values, and identities subjected to strategic scrutiny and distortion.

Bringing together contributions from history, political science, and psychology, the volume highlights both the common patterns and the unique variations of character assassination as it has unfolded across different cultural, political, and technological contexts. The comparative case studies demonstrate how reputational attacks are not only timeless but also deeply shaped by the media and institutions of their era. This completely revised edition includes a newly written introduction situating the volume within recent theoretical developments in character assassination research. Two new chapters expand the thematic and chronological scope of the work.

An essential resource for understanding the enduring and evolving power of reputational warfare, this book will be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience, including history, political science, and political psychology.

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface

Martijn Icks and Eric Shiraev

Introduction

Martijn Icks and Eric Shiraev

1 Character Assassination: Bridging Psychology and History

Eric Shiraev

Ancient Rome

2 Character Attack and Invective Speech in the Roman Republic: Cicero as Target

Henriette van der Blom

3 Reports about the 'Sex Life' of Early Roman Emperors: A Case of Character Assassination?

Jan Meister

4 Creating Tyrants in Ancient Rome: Character Assassination and Imperial Investiture

Martijn Icks

Reflections: Ancient Rome

Martijn Icks and Eric Shiraev

The Middle Ages

5 Falsifying the Prophet: Muhammad at the Hands of His Earliest Christian Biographers in the West

Kenneth Baxter Wolf

6 Louis of Orléans, Isabeau of Bavaria, and the Burgundian Propaganda Machine, 1392-1407

Tracy Adams

7 A Newcomer in Defamatory Propaganda: Youth (Late Fourteenth to Early Fifteenth Century)

Gilles Lecuppre

Reflections: Medieval Cases

Martijn Icks and Eric Shiraev

The Early Modern Age

8 The Ass in the Seat of St. Peter: Defamation of the Pope in Early Lutheran Flugschriften

Bobbi Dykema

9 Odious and Vile Names: Political Character Assassination and Purging in the French Revolution

Mette Harder

10 "As Awkward and Deficient as His Wife Is Amiable and Accomplished": The Character Assassination of the Dutch Statesman Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck (1761-1825)

Edwina Hagen

Reflections: Early Modern Cases

Martijn Icks and Eric Shiraev

The Modern Age

11 Character Attacks and American Presidents

Eric Shiraev and Jason Smart

12 The Gao-Rao Affair: A Case of Character Assassination in Chinese Politics in the 1950s

Zi Yang and Eric Shiraev

13 Propaganda and Resistance: The Failed Character Assassination of Václav Havel in Communist Media

Martina Klicperová-Baker

14 Women's Libbers and Lesbians: Character Assassination in the Phyllis Schlafly Report

Jennifer Keohane

15 Political Cartoons as a Medium for Persuasive Attack: The Case of Governor Noem the Puppy Killer

William L. Benoit and Sergei A. Samoilenko

Reflections: Modern Cases

Martijn Icks and Eric Shiraev

Epilogue

Martijn Icks and Eric Shiraev

Index