This work attempts to bridge political science and history by comparing and contrasting war and state formation in China during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (656–221 BCE) and in early modern Europe (1495–1815). For the most part, it fails in this attempt, partly because of a rather superficial understanding of history and historical processes, particularly in China, and partly because of misguided efforts to shoehorn complex development processes into neat theoretical models. The author, a visiting assistant professor in political science at the University of Notre Dame, notes that the book's genesis lay in her attempt to solve the puzzle of why political scientists and Europeanists take for granted checks and balances in European (and presumably world) politics, while Chinese and Sinologists take for granted a coercive universal empire in China (p. 1). She attempts to solve this enigma by articulating a “dynamic theory of world politics...

You do not currently have access to this content.