"Dynasty persists into the modern world, but it has lost much of its aura during recent centuries. With the emergence of industrialised and urbanised societies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, alternative forms of power have become more prominent. Kingship evolved at a point where societies moved beyond kinship as the key principle of social organisation; it retreated in modern urban and industrial society. Kinship and family, however, remain a force to be reckoned with. Personalised and enduring forms of leadership in politics and in business tend to acquire semi-dynastic traits even in the contemporary world. In autocratic states, the power of modern-day dynasts extends far beyond anything their predecessors could have imagined"--