Coercion, Capital, and European States, A.D. 990-1990 (Studies in Social Discontinuity)

This is at once an account and an explanation of the evolution of European states during the present millennium. The central problem addressed by the author concerns the great variety in the kinds of state that have prevailed in Europe since AD 990....Professor Tilly shows how interactions between the wielders of power on the one hand and the manipulators of capital on the other resulted in three state formations each of which prevailed over long periods -- tribute-taking empires, systems of fragmented sovereignty, and national states. In this pathbreaking work, Charles Tilly challenges all previous formulations of state development in Europe, including his own Formation of National States in Western Europe. Specifically, Tilly charges that most available explanations fail because they do not account for the great variety of states which were viable at different stages of European history, and because they assume a unilinear path of development resolving in today's national state. Thus the central question for Tilly is this: "What accounts for the great variation over time and space in the kinds of state that have prevailed in Europe since AD 990?" Some 3,800 years ago, the ruler of a small Mesopotamian city-state conquered all the region's other city-state, and made them subject to Marduk, his own city's god. 1......Page 1 2......Page 25 3......Page 40 4......Page 54 5......Page 70 6......Page 87 7......Page 102 8......Page 120 9......Page 137