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Rating: 
Summary: The ascendancy of "bureaucratic constitutionalism"
Review: In the begging of the period known as "Early Modern Europe" the new sovereign states of the continent found themselfes competing for supremacy.In the years before the French revolution, the British Kingdom will prove to be the most effective of all.The author takes as back in the Middle Ages to explain why different types of regimes were developed in Europe and who are the three factors that influenced their development. The book is a very interesting one,the author's bibliography is quite impressive,but its special subject makes it very difficult for someone that is not accustomed to European history to follow the basic assumptions.In each step,it is essential to know the real facts in order to understand what is going on.One small deficiency is that the case of the Netherlans is never mentioned,not even in the very good introduction where all European states are seperated into four groups after they are analyzed.
Rating:
Summary: The ascendancy of "bureaucratic constitutionalism"
Review: In the begging of the period known as "Early Modern Europe" the new sovereign states of the continent found themselfes competing for supremacy.In the years before the French revolution, the British Kingdom will prove to be the most effective of all.The author takes as back in the Middle Ages to explain why different types of regimes were developed in Europe and who are the three factors that influenced their development. The book is a very interesting one,the author's bibliography is quite impressive,but its special subject makes it very difficult for someone that is not accustomed to European history to follow the basic assumptions.In each step,it is essential to know the real facts in order to understand what is going on.One small deficiency is that the case of the Netherlans is never mentioned,not even in the very good introduction where all European states are seperated into four groups after they are analyzed.
Rating: 
Summary: Illuminating and solid
Review: This book contains a great historical analysis of the building up of nation-states, from the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire unitl the French Revolution. Ertman classifies the upcoming states into four different types of regime and origins: patrimonialist absolutism (Spain, France, Portugal and the Italian states); bureaucratic absolutism (Denmark and the German states); patrimonialist constitutionalism (Hungary and Poland); and bureaucratic constitutionalism (Sweden and Great Britain).Ertman defines as determining factors of the type of regime: 1) the timing in the emergence of geopolitical pressures, which forced states to recruit and finance armies (the earlier, the more patrimonialist); 2) the kind of local government, centralized or participative; 3) the kind of assembly or parliament, territorial or estamental; and 4) the existence or not of large-scale state-building efforts during the Middle Ages. This is a deep book about how the nation-state came to exist the way we know it. It is a fundamental tool to understand where this political form of organization comes from, especially now that both local and multinational forces are putting it into question as to its future. Ertman describes with precision the forces that shaped the nation-state, and now it would be very interesting to read someone who has an explanation for the forces that are seemingly tearing it apart.
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