Does War Make States?: Investigations of Charles Tilly's Historical Sociology

Arising from renewed engagement with Charles Tilly's canonical work on the relationship between war and state formation, this volume situates Tilly's work in a broader theoretical landscape and brings it into contemporary debates on state formation theory. Starting with Tilly's famous dictum 'war made the state, and the state made war', the book takes his claim further, examining it from a philosophical, theoretical and conceptual view, and asking whether it is applicable to non-European regions such as the Middle East, South America and China. The authors question Tilly's narrow view of the causal relationship between warfare and state-making, and use a positive yet critical approach to suggest alternative ways to explain how the state is formed. Readers will gain a comprehensive view of the most recent developments in the literature on state formation, as well as a more nuanced view of Charles Tilly's work.

Author: Lars Bo Kaspersen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 03/02/2017
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.39lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.81d
ISBN: 9781107141506

About the Author
Kaspersen, Lars Bo: - Lars Bo Kaspersen trained as a sociologist and is now a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen, where he teaches history, politics and sociology. His research interests are in the transformation of the welfare state, the sociology of war and civil society. His most recent book is Denmark in the World (2013).Strandsbjerg, Jeppe: - Jeppe Strandsbjerg trained as a political scientist and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Business and Politics at Copenhagen Business School. His research interests are in arctic geopolitics and the spatiality of the sovereign territorial state. He has published articles in several journals, including Geopolitics and the Journal of Power.