Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990 - 1992 - (Studies in Social Discontinuity) by Charles Tilly (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

From the Back Cover

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. he argues that to conceive European state development as a simple, unilinear process is untenable, and further that relations between the states themselves are a big factor in their formation and evolution. The final part of the book then applies these insights to the history of Third World states since 1945.

For the paperback edition the author has made minor revisions throughout and provided an additional section on the rapid changes that have recently taken place in Central and Eastern Europe.

"An Important, provocative theory, with much originality and richly documented...it is extremely well written, despite containing both theory and a wealth of empirical information. It caries substantial learning lightly."
--Michael Mann, American Journal of Sociology

"Admirable...Thoughtful and scrupulous."
--Basil Davidson, Journal of International Affairs

"Admirers of Charles Tilly's work on European history will now have even more to admire - another genuine breakthrough. ... Straightforward, enlightened, and powerful."
--Jack A. Goldstone, Contemporary Sociology

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

About the Author

Charles Tilly is University Distinguished Professor at the New School for Social Research, where he directs the Centre for Studies of Social Change.