Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- 1 Before the state: prehistory to AD 1300 -- Tribes without rulers -- Tribes with rulers (chiefdoms) -- City-states -- Empires, strong and weak -- Limits of stateless societies -- 2 The rise of the state: 1300 to 1648 -- The struggle against the church -- The struggle against the Empire -- The struggle against the nobility -- The struggle against the towns -- The monarchs' triumph -- 3 The state as an instrument: 1648 to 1789 -- Building the bureaucracy -- Creating the infrastructure -- Monopolizing violence -- The growth of political theory -- Inside the Leviathan -- 4 The state as an ideal: 1789 to 1945 -- The Great Transformation -- Disciplining the people -- Conquering money -- The road to total war -- The apotheosis of the state -- 5 The spread of the state: 1696 to 1975 -- Toward Eastern Europe -- The Anglo-Saxon experience -- The Latin American experiment -- Frustration in Asia and Africa -- What everybody has… -- 6 The decline of the state: 1975- -- The waning of major war -- The retreat of welfare -- Technology goes international -- The threat to internal order -- The withdrawal of faith -- Conclusions: beyond the state -- Index.