The Sources of Social Power: Volume 1, A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760

Preface to the second edition; 1. Societies as organized power networks; 2. The end of general social evolution: how prehistoric peoples evaded power; 3. The emergence of stratification, states and multi-power-actor civilisation in Mesopotamia; 4. A comparative analysis of the emergence of stratification, states and multi-power-actor civilisations; 5. The first empires of domination: the dialectics of compulsory cooperation; 6. 'Indo-Europeans' and iron: expanding, diversified power networks; 7. Phoenicians and Greeks: decentralized multi-power-actor civilisations; 8. Revitalized empires of domination: Assyria and Persia; 9. The Roman territorial empire; 10. Ideology transcendent: the Christian ecumene; 11. A comparative excursus into the world religions: Confucianism, Islam, and (especially) Hindu caste; 12. The European dynamic: I. the intensive phase, AD 800–1155; 13. The European dynamics: II. the rise of coordinating states, 1155–1477; 14. The European dynamic: III. international capitalism and organic national states, 1477–1760; 15. European conclusions: explaining European dynamism – capitalism, Christendom, and states; 16. Patterns of world-historical development in agrarian societies; Index.