Description: In this pathbreaking work, now available in paperback, Charles Tilly challenges all previous formulations of state development in Europe. Specifically, Tilly charges that most available explanations fail because they do not account for the great variety of kinds of states which were viable at different stages of European history, and because they assume a unilinear path of state development resolving in today's national state.
Review Quotes: "Closely argued and thought-provoking book." Economic History Review
"Tilly's thesis is presented with great lucidity... contributed to perform a service not merely for historians, but for mankind." French History
"An important, provocative theory, with much originality and richly documented .... extremely well written." American Journal of Sociology
"This is a good and important book. It is well written, and it presents the complex history of European state formation over a time span of one thousand years in a most understandable way. With a profound knowledge of history and an amazing compository skill, Tilly takes his readers by the hand and leads them." International Review of Social History