1: Introduction to the Transaction Edition; 1: Preface to the First Paperback Edition; 1: Preface; One: Conditions of Development of the Political Systems of the Historical Bureaucratic Empires; 1: The Historical Bureaucratic Polities The Setting and the Problem; 2: The Fundamental Characteristics of the Political Systems and the Social Conditions of Their Development Basic Hypotheses; 3: The Economic Structure of the Historical Bureaucratic Societies; 4: Religious and Cultural Organization and Orientation; 5: Social Organization and Stratification; 6: The Social Conditions and the Institutionalization of the Political Systems; Two: Conditions of Perpetuation of the Political Systems of the Historical Bureaucratic Empires; 7: The Policies of the Rulers; 8: The Political Orientations and Activities of the Major Groups and Strata; 9: The Social Determinants of the Political Processes A Comparative Analysis; 10: The Place of the Bureaucracy in the Political Process; 11: The Place of the Political Process in the Social Structures of the Centralized Empires; 12: Processes of Change in the Political Systems; 13: Conclusions

Winner of the prestigious MacIver Award when it was first published, this remains a towering work of modern political sociology, especially of macrosociology