P.W. Preston is Professor Emeritus at the University of Birmingham, UK, and has taught comparative politics over many years at universities in Scotland, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and China.

• 1. State-Empires and the Shift to the Modern World 2. State-Empire Systems: The Players 3. State-Empire Systems: The Logics 4. State-Empire Systems: The Fracture Lines 5. General Crisis: System Failure and Collapse 6. State-Empire Dissolution 7. After the State-Empires: Territories, States, Nations and Development 8. Powerful Regions and the Surprising Costs of Success