Google tells me that the real Napoleon Bonaparte used somewhat more vivid imagery to rhetorically raise and dismiss the question, what’s a throne? For my limited purpose this week, I’m content to use what Rod Steiger, playing him in the 1970 classic Waterloo, said. Something like, what’s a throne? It’s an overpriced piece of furniture.
This was still the early 19th century, a throne still mattered. In most of the modern world, it doesn’t even exist. Nationalism has crept back pan-nationally to some extent lately, yet the symbols of the nation-state — thrones, crowns, anthems, flags — have generally faded from
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