Leviathan 2.0 - Inventing Modern Statehood

Thomas Hobbes laid the theoretical groundwork of the nation-state in Leviathan, his tough-minded treatise of 1651. Leviathan 2.0 updates this classic account to explain how modern statehood took shape between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, before it unraveled into the political uncertainty that persists today.

Modern states were far from immune to the modernizing forces of war, technology, and ideology. From 1845 to 1880, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Argentina were all reconstituted through territorial violence. Europe witnessed the unification of Germany and Italy, while Asian nations such as Japan tried to mitigate foreign incursions through state-building reforms. A global wave of revolution at the turn of the century pushed the modernization process further in China, Russia, Iran, and Ottoman Turkey. By the late 1930s, with the rise of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, the momentum of history seemed to shift toward war-glorifying totalitarian states. But several variants of the modern state survived World War II: the welfare states of Western democracies; single-party socialist governments; and governments dominated by the military, especially prevalent in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East.

Toward the end of the twentieth century, all of these forms stood in growing tension with the transformative influences of globalized capitalism. Modern statehood recreated itself in many ways, Charles S. Maier concludes, but finally had to adopt a precarious equilibrium with ever more powerful economic forces.

About the author

Charles S. Maier is Leverett Saltonstall Research Professor of History at Harvard University. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Council on Foreign Relations, he has written a number of award-winning books, including Recasting Bourgeois Europe, The Unmasterable Past, Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany, and Once Within Borders.

Product details

• Authors: Charles S Maier, Charles S. Maier, Maier Charles S.
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 21.04.2014
• EAN: 9780674281325
• ISBN: 978-0-674-28132-5
• No. of pages: 384
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory, POLITICAL SCIENCE / International Relations / General, HISTORY / World, HISTORY / Modern / 19th Century, International Relations, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, General & world history, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Political science & theory, c 1500 onwards to present day, General and world history, Political science and theory, HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century / General