Preface -- List of contributors -- 1. 'Sacred kingship' and formation of the state -- 2. Traditional Rwanda: deconsecrating a sacred kingdom -- 3. Kinship and politics. The formation of the state among the pastoralists of the Sahara and the Sahel -- 4. Specific features of the African early state -- 5. Evolution, fission, and the early state -- 6. The structure of the Mamprusi kingdom and the cult of naam -- 7. Social function and political power: a case study of state formation in irrigation society -- 8. The early state among the Eurasian nomads -- 9. The legitimation of early inchoate states -- 10. Warfare and the origin of the state: another formulation -- 11. West African kingdoms and the early state: a review of some recent analyses -- 12. 'Divine kingship' in chiefdoms and states. A single ideological model -- 13. The Kushāṇa state: a preliminary study -- 14. The pre-colonial Indian state in history and epistemology. A reconstruction of societal formation in the Western Deccan from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth century -- 15. Ways of state formation in Africa: a demonstration of typical possibilities -- 16. Kalinga and Andhra: the process of secondary state formation in early India -- 17. Some additional thoughts on the concept of the early state -- 18. From 'empire' to state: the emergence of the kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara: c. 1350-1890 -- 19. Terrestrial deities and celestial bureaucrats: transfor¬mation of the state and local communities in the Asiatic mode of production in Japan -- 20. The state as a problem of jurisprudence -- 21. The state as empire -- 22. The army and the formation of the states of West Africa in the nineteenth century: the cases of Kenedugu and Samori state -- 23. Marx and Weber on the primary state -- 24. The study of the Southeast Asian state.

25. Ubi sumus? The Study of the State conference in retrospect -- Biographical notes -- Index of names -- Index of subjects.