ABSTRACT
Historical sociologists and historians have had a tendency to view the process of long-term political change in Europe as a rather singular process, or one in which there was only one main direction of change. As Charles Tilly shows in this selection, however, such a view is a considerable oversimplification. Tilly outlines European political evolution over the past millennium and shows that there have been a variety of political outcomes. In the half-millennium between A.D. 990 and 1490, two distinct types of states formed. In regions where trade was prominent and merchants held great sway—in highly urbanized areas, normally—relatively small city-states tended to form. By contrast, where merchants and trade were less significant and where agrarian landlords controlled the economy, large centralized states were the rule.
