Product DescriptionThis unprecedented survey and analysis of government is the late S. E. Finer'stour de force - demonstrating the breadth of imagination and magisterial scholarship that characterized the work of one of the twentieth century's leading political scientists. A unique study of government through time and throughout the world, it ranges over 5,000 years, from the Sumerian city state to the modern European nation state. Five themes emerge: state-building, military formats, belief systems, social stratification, and timespan. The three volumes examine both representative and exceptional polities, and focus on political elites of different types.Review"If there were a Nobel prize for political science, Sammy Finer would deserve to win one for this extraordinary trilogy--a work of scholarship so broad in its sympathies, so ambitious in scope and so elegantly crafted that it leaves the reader gasping, literally, with astonishment and delight...[L]ikely to be read as long as Aristotle.No finer work of political science...has been published in this century."--The Economist"No review can fully capture the breadth and accessibility of S.E. Finer's posthumous magnum opus....[he] constantly reminds us of exceptions that explain the richness and diversity of polities."--HistoryAbout the AuthorThe lateS.E. Finer was Emeritus Professor of Government and Public Administration in the University of Oxford.