ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines how the state and the state apparatus structure the sociospatial organization of capitalist society. It provides the hospitals in which people are born; schools in which people are educated; jobs at which many of people labor; and social security which supports people until people are buried in a public cemetery. The book provides a systematic understanding of the capitalist state and its apparatus. It concerns the territorial manifestations of state involvement in national, regional and urban processes. The book focuses on the spatial structure of capitalist society which occurs as a consequence of state actions. It argues for a theory of the state that could come to grips with the concrete expression of state power and activity. The book provides an account of the links between the capitalist state apparatus and sociospatial processes.
