Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan (2016). Ilia Murtazashvili is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of The Political Economy of the American Frontier (2013) and co-author of The Origins and Consequences of Property Rights (2020).

'Land, the State, and War makes a pioneering contribution to one of the most enduring questions in the social sciences – what are the causes of the wealth of nations? Weaving together an original theory of property rights with surveys, fieldwork, and historical analysis from Afghanistan, the Murtazashvilis shed light on why repeated efforts to establish formal property rights have failed. This book is required reading for anyone committed to the dictum, 'first, do no harm.'' Christopher Coyne, Professor of Economics, George Mason University

• 1. Introduction; 2. A theory of property rights; 3. Property rights and state building; 4. Property rights and war; 5. Self-governance of property rights; 6. Self-governance, war, and the commons; 7. Self-governance, legal titling, and the state; 8. Are property rights a cause or consequence of political order?; References.