How the social organization of Europe and China shaped their divergent economic and political trajectories over the past millenniumIn the eleventh century, when Europe was still backward and poor, China was a rich and sophisticated civilization. Yet Europe became the birthplace of democracy and the Industrial Revolution, driving the Great Enrichment, while China stagnated until the end of the twentieth century and was always ruled by autocracies. Two Paths to P...

Students of comparative politics have long faced a vexing dilemma: how can social scientists draw broad, applicable principles of political order from specific historical examples? In Analytic Narratives, five senior scholars offer a new and ambitious methodological response to this important question. By employing rational-choice and game theory, the authors propose a way of extracting empirically testable, general hypotheses from particular cases. The result is both a methodological mani...

This book brings together a group of leading economic historians to examine how institutions, innovation, and industrialization have determined the development of nations. Presented in honor of Joel Mokyr—arguably the preeminent economic historian of his generation—these wide-ranging essays address a host of core economic questions. What are the origins of markets? How do governments shape our economic fortunes? What role has entrepreneurship played in the rise and success of capitalism? T...

A landmark history of the origins of modern democratic societies by one of our most important political thinkers.A New York Times Notable Book for 2011A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 TitleA Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of 2011 titleVirtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that coul...

In The Origin of Capitalism, a now-classic work of history, Ellen Meiksins Wood offers readers a clear and accessible introduction to the theories and debates concerning the birth of capitalism, imperialism, and the modern nation state. Capitalism is not a natural and inevitable consequence of human nature, nor simply an extension of age-old practices of trade and commerce. Rather, it is a late and localized product of very specific historical conditions, which required great tran...

The long history of China’s relationship between stability, diversity, and prosperity, and how its current leadership threatens this delicate balance“Riveting.”—Tunku Varadarajan, Wall Street JournalA Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2023Chinese society has been shaped by the interplay of the EAST—exams, autocracy, stability, and technology—from ancient times through the present. Beginning with the Sui...

The gripping story of how the end of the Roman Empire was the beginning of the modern worldThe fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome's dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe's economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Ranging across the entire premodern world, Escape from Rome

**"One of the most important books on political regimes written in a generation."**—Steven Levitsky, New York Times–bestselling author of How Democracies DieA new understanding of how and why early democracy took hold, how modern democracy evolved, and what this history teaches us about the futureHistorical accounts of democracy’s rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. The Decline and Rise of ...

Transcending ethnic, linguistic, and religious boundaries, early empires shaped thousands of years of world history. Yet despite the global prominence of empire, individual cases are often studied in isolation. This series seeks to change the terms of the debate by promoting cross-cultural, comparative, and transdisciplinary perspectives on imperial state formation prior to the European colonial expansion. Two thousand years ago, up to one-half of the human species was contained within two...

How social networks shaped the imperial Chinese stateChina was the world’s leading superpower for almost two millennia, falling behind only in the last two centuries and now rising to dominance again. What factors led to imperial China’s decline? The Rise and Fall of Imperial China offers a systematic look at the Chinese state from the seventh century through to the twentieth. Focusing on how short-lived emperors often ruled a strong state while long-lasti...

Why, from the eighteenth century onwards, did some countries embark on a path of sustained economic growth, while others stagnated? This text looks at the kind of institutions that are required in order for change to take place, and Ringmar concludes that for sustained development to be possible, change must be institutionalized. Taking a global view, Ringmar investigates the implications of his conclusion on issues facing the developing world today.

Power and Privilege seeks to answer the central question of the field of social stratification: Who gets what and why? Using a dialectical view of the development of thought in the discipline, Gerhard Lenski describes the outlines of an emerging synthesis of theories. He shows that perspectives as diverse and contradictory as those of Marx, Spencer, Sumner, Veblen, Mosca, Pareto, Sorokin, Parsons, and Dahrendorf are parts of an evolving and systematic body of theory.