Why read Lineages of the Absolutist State?

Book cover of Lineages of the Absolutist State

Book description

Forty years after its original publication, Lineages of the Absolutist State remains an exemplary achievement in comparative history. Picking up from where its companion volume, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, left off, Lineages traces the development of Absolutist states in the early modern period from their roots in European feudalism,…

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European history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Lineages of the Absolutist State as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Philip B. Minehan

Author

This book is both a soaring and substantive comparative analysis of early modern social classes and state formation in Europe, the Ottoman Empire, China, and Japan.

For me and many others, it has been indispensable for understanding world power politics and history from the early modern era to the present. Methodologically, it is a genuine tour de force. Anderson’s scholarly output generally is in a class by itself.

From Philip's list on modern world history and politics.