This book describes the foundations of stateless societies, why and how states emerge, and the basis of political obligation.

Carles Boix is the Robert Garrett Professor of Politics and Public Affairs in the Department of Politics and at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. His first book, Political Parties, Growth and Equality (Cambridge, 1998), examines the different means through which partisan governments manage the economy in a globalized world. In his more recent work, Democracy and Redistribution (Cambridge, 2003), Boix describes the economic and institutional conditions that lead to democratization. Both books received the William Riker award for the best book on political economy. Boix coedited the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics (2007), which has quickly become one of the main works of reference in political science, and has published in the top journals of the discipline, such as the American Political Science Review and World Politics. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

1. Tabula rasa; 2. Political order; 3. Technological progress; 4. Warfare; 5. Inequality; 6. Modern breakthrough; 7. Conclusions.