The state is the most massive and significant modern expression of the broader phenomenon of political power. This book offers a fresh, accessible and original interpretation of the modern state, concentrating particularly on the emergence and nature of democracy.

Poggi presents an extensive conceptual portrait of the state, distinguishing its early characteristics from those which have developed subsequently and are apparent in contemporary states. He reviews the 'historical career' of the state, from the dissolution of feudal forms of rule to the advent of modern, liberal-democratic systems.

Poggi also discusses the most significant developments occurring in our times concerning the nature of liberal-democratic regimes: these developments emphasize the growth and diversification of state action, and the resulting disconnection between policy and politics. Poggi considers the distinctive features of one-party systems, and discusses why these systems encountered these difficulties in promoting advanced industrial development. The final chapter discusses the challenges set to the state by contemporary developments in military affairs, in the international economy and in the ecological sphere.

Gianfranco Poggi (1956)

Professor of Sociology at University of Trento. <br> Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia and European University Institute

I was born in Italy, in 1934, and educated there. In 1956, shortly after graduating in law at Padua, I became a graduate student in sociology at UCB. In 1957-58 I worked in Rome as an assistant on an American political science research project, returning to Berkeley the following year, and leaving after two years to work on my doctoral dissertation on Italian Catholic Action. I studied chiefly under Lipset, Bendix, Kornhauser, Lowenthal. I returned to Italy in 1961, and received my Berkeley PhD in 1963. In 1964 I joined the sociology dept. newly founded by Tom Burns at Edinburgh, and remained there 24 years (though during this time I also taught in the US, Canada, and Australia). In 1988 I joined the sociology faculty at the University of Virginia, which I left in 1965, returning to Italy in order to teach at the European University Institute (Florence). My current (and last!) post is at the University of Trento. My two main research and teaching fields are modern political institutions (I have published two books and several essays on the state and related subjects) and the 'classics' (I have published on Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and Simmel).