¡°Ambitious and highly readable.¡± -he New Yorker
¡°Political theorist Francis Fukuyama's new book is a major accomplishment, likely to find its place among the works of seminal thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke, and modern moral philosophers and economists such as John Rawls and Amartya Sen . . .It is a perspective and a voice that can supply a thinker's tonic for our current political maladies.¡± -Earl Pike, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
¡°An intellectual triumph--bold in scope, sound in judgment, and rich in provocations; in short, a classic.¡± -Ian Morris, Slate
¡°A sweeping survey that tries to explain why human beings act as they do in the political sphere. Magisterial in its learning and admirably immodest in its ambition.¡± -David Gress, The Wall Street Journal
Chapter Page
Preface ix
Part I Before the State
1. The Necessity of Politics 3
2. The State of Nature 26
3. The Tyranny of Cousins 49
4. Tribal Societies: Property, Justice, War 64
5. The Coming of the Leviathan 80
Part II State Building
6. Chinese Tribalism 97
7. War and the Rise of the Chinese State 110
8. The Great Han System 128
9. Political Decay and the Return of Patrimonial Government 139
10. The Indian Detour 151
11. Varnas and Jatis 162
12. Weaknesses of Indian Polities 175
13. Slavery and the Muslim Exit from Tribalism 189
14. The Mamluks Save Islam 202
15. The Functioning and Decline of the Ottoman State 214
16. Christianity Undermines the Family 229
Part III The Rule of Law
17. The Origins of the Rule of Law 245
18. The Church Becomes a State 262
19. The State Becomes a Church 276
20. Oriental Despotism 290
21. Stationary Bandits 303
Part IV Accountable Government
22. The ...Rise of Political Accountability 321
23. Rente Seekers 336
24. Patrimonialism Crosses the Atlantic 355
25. East of the Elbe 373
26. Toward a More Perfect Absolutism 386
27. Taxation and Representation 402
28. Why Accountability? Why Absolutism? 422
Part V Toward a Theory of Political Development
29. Political Development and Political Decay 437
30. Political Development, Then and Now 458
Notes 485
Bibliography 535
Acknowledgments 557
Index 559