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

This engaging volume scrutinises the causal relationship between warfare and state formation, using Charles Tilly's work as a foundation.

Lars Bo Kaspersen (Edited by), Jeppe Strandsbjerg (Edited by)

9781107141506, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 March 2017

352 pages, 1 table
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.9 cm, 0.65 kg

'Charles Tilly's claim that war-making helped state-building has long had the status of established truth. This superb collection offers several challenges - both in the European core and in other civilizations - that make us rethink matters. The book will, for sure, gain a wide readership.' John A. Hall, McGill University, Montréal

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.

Introduction: state formation theory: status, problems, and prospects Lars Bo Kaspersen, Jeppe Strandsbjerg and Benno Teschke
Part I. Lineages: 1. After the 'Tilly-thesis': social conflict, differential state formation and geopolitics in the construction of the European system of states Benno Teschke
2. Otto Hintze, Stein Rokkan and Charles Tilly's theory of European state-building Thomas Ertman
Part II. Challenges: 3. War and state formation: amending the Bellicist theory of state-making Hendrik Spruyt
4. Beyond the Tilly thesis: 'family values' and state formation in Latin Christendom Philip Gorski and Vivek Sharma
Part III. Omissions: 5. The space of state formation Jeppe Strandsbjerg
6. The realm as a European form of rule: unpacking the warfare thesis through the Holy Roman Empire Peter Haldén
7. War, conflict and the state reconsidered Vivek Sharma
Part IV. Vistas: 8. War and state in the Middle East: reassessing Charles Tilly in a regional context Dietrich Jung
9. Beyond mere war: authority and legitimacy in the formation of the Latin American states Robert H. Holden
10. How Tilly's state formation paradigm is revolutionising the study of Chinese state-making Victoria Hui.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Comparative politics [JPB], Social theory [JHBA], General & world history [HBG]