Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990

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.