State Formation and Development

States are very old: the earliest writing finds them well-established in Sumer and in Egypt. Modern states are immensely more capable and powerful than those states, and not just because of technology: they are far more organized and effective. How, and why?

ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah ["The state is that institution in society whose end is to suppress all such injustice as it does not itself commit." (From memory.)]
William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force and Society since A.D. 1000
Charles Tilly, "Cities, states, and trust networks: chapter 1 of Cities and States in World History", Theory and Society 39 (2010): 265--280

Lars-Erik Cederman, Emergent Actors in World Politics: How States and Nations Develop and Dissolve
Drew Conway, "Networks, Collective Action, and State Formation" [Abstract, with links to PDF and code]
John A. Hall, Coercion and Consent: Studies in the Modern State
Victoria Tin-Bor Hui, War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe [Blurb]
Conor O'Dwyer, Runaway State-Building: Patronage Politics and Democratic Development
Philip G. Roeder, Where Nation-States Come From: Institutional Change in the Age of Nationalism [Blurb, ch. 1]
Hendrik Spruyt, "The Origins, Development, and Possible Decline of the Modern State", Annual Review of Political Science 5 (2002): 127--149
Charles Tilly
- Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990--1990
- "State Formation as Organized Crime"

Notebooks

State Formation and Development