For many years scholars have sought to explain why the European states which emerged in the period before the French Revolution developed along such different lines. Why did some become absolutist and others constitutionalist? What enabled some to develop bureaucratic administrative systems, while others remained dependent upon patrimonial practices? This book presents a new theory of state-building in medieval and early modern Europe. Ertman argues that two factors - the organisation of local government at the time of state formation and the timing of sustained geo-military competition - can explain most of the variation in political regimes and in state infrastructures found across the continent during the second half of the eighteenth century. Drawing on insights developed in historical sociology, comparative politics, and economic history, this book makes a compelling case for the value of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of political development.

托馬斯·埃特曼(1959－)，齣生於美國新澤西州，在紐約和德國完成中學教育。1981年和1990年分彆獲哈佛大學的哲學碩士、社會學博士學位，其博士論文的指導老師是西達·斯考切波。1990-2000年在哈佛大學政府係擔任助理教授、副教授，2000年開始擔任紐約大學社會學係的副教授，從事比較曆史社會學、政治社會學、社會理論等方麵的研究。《利維坦的誕生——中世紀及現代早期歐洲的國傢與政權建設》1998年獲得美國社會學協會巴林頓·摩爾奬。此外，還與他人閤著《從濛特韋德到布爾迪厄：意大利和法國的劇場與社會》(Opera and society in Italy and France from Monteverdi to Bourctieu，Cam—bridge University Press 2007)。