ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on historical sociologist Charles Tilly, who has synthesized the literature on state formation for the period 990 to 1990. Tilly observes that “war and preparation for war produced the major components of European states.” The European experience of state formation can be summarized as follows, using as an arbitrary date the year 1500. The peripheral belt included the Ottoman empire, the Spanish domains, France, England and the Nordic nations, Russia, Poland and Hungary. As Tilly observes, there are reasons to apply the Western experience to non-Western settings. The range of productivity in Africa is smaller, underscoring the lower level of national economic productivity in Africa compared with Europe. Coincidental links between coercion and capital, and between the growth of the state apparatus and urbanization, can be observed. The comments and encouragement of Lee Sigelman and Charles Tilly are gratefully recognized, without in any manner implicating those persons.
