Polities : authority, identities, and change

Introduction : new paths to theory -- The subject is politics -- Mesopotamia : fission-fusion of the first city polities and empires -- The sources and limits of central authority in mesopotamia -- Greece : structural features of a watershed civilization -- The Polis : triumph and challenge of citizenship -- Ancient China : overlapping polities in an imperial framework -- The mandate of heaven : authority in ancient China -- Mesoamerica : a multitude of polities -- Mesoamerica and the Spanish conquest : the collision of civilizations -- Islam : the evolution of a messianic movement -- The caliphate : the limits of dynastic power -- Italy after Rome : complexity at the nexus of the ancient and modern worlds -- Medieval Italy : competing visions of unity and authority -- The past as prelude.