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  1. Home
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  3. Birth of the Leviathan
  • Cited by 531
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
March 2010
Print publication year:
1997
Online ISBN:
9780511529016
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511529016
Subjects:
Area Studies, Sociology: General Interest, European History: General Interest, History, European Studies, Sociology
Information

Book description

For many years scholars have sought to explain why the European states which emerged in the period before the French Revolution developed along such different lines. Why did some become absolutist and others constitutionalist? What enabled some to develop bureaucratic administrative systems, while others remained dependent upon patrimonial practices? This book presents a new theory of state-building in medieval and early modern Europe. Ertman argues that two factors - the organisation of local government at the time of state formation and the timing of sustained geo-military competition - can explain most of the variation in political regimes and in state infrastructures found across the continent during the second half of the eighteenth century. Drawing on insights developed in historical sociology, comparative politics, and economic history, this book makes a compelling case for the value of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of political development.

Reviews

‘ This is definitely a book for historians as well as for social scientists constituting in all a remarkable achievement.’

Source: The English Historical Review

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