ABSTRACT
The Ottoman state has frequently been cited in works of comparative history or sociology as a particularly clear example of a centralised, bureaucratic state standing over a social formation which, in its essential economic relationships, exemplifies the Asiatic mode of production. Runciman's book, in contrast, is both more broadly comparativistic and addresses the issue of social-structural evolution and selection as a generic problem of human societal existence. Historical materialism, which takes the material conditions of the existence and reproduction of human cultures as determinant, must continue to provide the conceptual apparatus for a socialist politics. Runciman distinguishes four crucial stages, tracks of evolution which may or may not lead from one to another, but in which the degree of social stratification, social division of labour and development of contradictory relations of production play a fundamental role. On Mehmed's death in 1481, there took place a serious reaction and partial reversal of his policies, accompanied by civil war.
