"Hence the current book, which looks at the historical origins of political institutions as well as the process of political decay. This is the first of two volumes, and it deals with political development from prehuman times up to roughly the eve of the French and American revolutions." Preface, p. xiii

"Both society and conflict have existed for as long as there have been human beings, because human beings are by nature both social and competitive animals. The primates from which the human species evolved practiced an attenuated form of politics." Chapter 1, p. 25

"Human societies are so diverse that it is very difficult to make truly universal generalizations from the comparative study of cultures. ... This does not mean, however, that regularities and similarities in evolutionary forms do not exist across different societies." Chapter 3, p. 51

"The chief driver of Chinese state formation was not the need to create grand...