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The Rise and Decline of the State

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I will start my review with what I consider two weaknesses of this book.

First, one of the previous reviewers commented on questionable accuracy of the historical facts presented in the book. I found one minor factual error and one mistake with the events I personally witnessed (p. 375). The factual error is the statement that Andropov started campaign to tighten discipline and, as part of it, he launched a campaign against drunkenness. In reality, Andropov indeed started wide-spread disciplinary measures, but the "credit" for the disastrous anti-drunkenness campaign of 1985 goes to Gorbachev.
The mistake is van Creveld's statement that after Afghanistan "adventure ended in defeat, in 1988, the Soviet leadership was left without an armed force which could have imposed unity on the country." This is nonsense. It is equivalent of saying that as a result of defeat in Vietnam, the US Army was destroyed. In fact, Soviet Army was used successfully afterwards exactly for the purpose of maintaining internal stability: in January of 1990 26,000 Soviet troops stormed overnight Baku (the capital of Azerbaijan) effectively "restoring the order" and killing 130 and injuring 700 people in the process. Also, in 1991-1992 the 14th Army under the command of General Lebed had effectively stopped the civil war between Moldova and Transdnistria and restored peace in the region. Only several years later, by murdering General Rokhlin and starting the First Chechen War, KGB started in earnest the destruction of Soviet Army as a fighting machine and political force (General Lebed was killed later).

The second weakness of this book is its writing style. Unfortunately, Professor van Creveld has an intractable predilection for large, convoluted, and unwieldy sentences, especially in the first two thirds of the book. Combined with the book's poor editing, it leads sometimes to outright blunders. Here is an example of a sentence taken from page 350 of the paper-back edition:
"The idea that complete sovereignty, including the unrestricted right to wage war, was too dangerous to entertain in the age of modern technology suffered another blow as a result of World War I and the 10 million casualties (in dead alone) that it wrought."
Not only must you parse this phrase in order to understand it (and you, by necessity, will become good at parsing by page 350 of this book), but this sentence, judging by the context, means exactly opposite: the idea that sovereignty understood as a right to wage war has become too dangerous did not suffer any blows, but was, in fact, confirmed by the horrors of World War I.
My purpose in pointing this out is to allay the anxiety of the future readers of this book. If you cannot understand some passages, this is not because you are stupid, but because of the regrettable way this book was written and edited.

Why would you bother to read a book which is difficult to read and may not be very accurate? There are a few reasons:
First, Professor van Creveld excels in making sense out of the heap of seemingly unrelated historical events. The breadth and depth of the scope of this book is so immense, that it must have inconsistencies by definition (because, for example, historians frequently disagree on the meaning and significance of historical events). This book is not meant to be a source of exact historical information, and you should not use it as such.
The historical analysis offered in this book is essentially Hegelian, i.e. the author presents different forms of political organization at the dawn of human civilization and then shows in minute detail how those organizations changed in time to become the modern state. The author combines an enormous amount of information - facts, dates, historical anecdotes - in order to prove that the modern state is not "the end of history," but only another stage of political development of human society. The author further shows that the modern state had outlived its usefulness and is due to be replaced by a different form of socio-political organization.

The second reason to read this book is the pleasure of following Professor van Creveld's process of historical thinking. Very few historians can match his erudition and intellect, and you can learn a lot simply by reading his thoughts on the subject.

Except for a very vague outline in the last five pages, there is no prediction of the future in this book - Professor van Creveld is too wise for that. Don't look for any practical advice either. If you need to know what kind of shelter to build, what gun to buy, and whether you must invest in ammunition, or gold, or both - look somewhere else. This book is a purely academic exercise, albeit of the highest order.

The Rise and Decline of the State was first published in 1999. Despite all the events of the last 6-7 years (9-11, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) this book holds its own remarkably well. I only want to comment that the extent of the UN "oil-for-food" corruption scandal was not known in the late 1990's, otherwise Professor van Creveld would probably expand on his opinion about the role of the UN (p. 385). It may well turn out that a hundred years from now historians will admire the honesty, dedication, and accountability of our state bureaucrats compared to their ruthless and corrupt non-government bureaucracies.

Overall, I think that The Rise and Decline of the State is well worth the time and effort necessary to study it. You will look at the current political and social events from a completely different perspective after reading this book. Anyone interested in history and politics must be aware of and pay attention to the discussion presented in this book.

In this book, Van Crevald gives a synopsis of the rise in importance of the state and then a synopsis of forces that could (or will) lead to its decline. As a work of political history, I suggest that this work is invaluable-- both to students who lean toward institutionalism and neorealism.... For a book of political science, this book is relatively a fun read: I don't want to say it is impossible to put down, but damned close!

I would suggest that this book is a MUST read for anyone who has been conditioned to think politically along the line leading from Morganthou to Waltz because it MIGHT hint at things that are to come, especially (and initially) for non first or second tier states.

In this comprehensive history of the modern state, author Martin Van Creveld weaves together disparate threads and illuminates hidden connections in forceful, energetic language. Thus, his book is both scholarly and entertaining. Van Creveld takes a generally dim view of governments and the state. The greater the state's power, the more he regards it as a monstrosity, and he's not shy about saying so. The anti-government political right will like this book, but Van Creveld's greatest contempt is reserved for nationalism, militarism and the state at war, which ought to entertain the left. He sees the state as a dubious, archaic institution and, as his narrative shows, his position transcends notions of conservative and liberal. Readers are likely to think of their nations differently after reading this book, which we [...] recommend primarily to students of politics and government and policy makers.

Anything Martin van Crevald writes is a five, and this book, although over-priced (...), is as as good as history can get. His notes are world-class, including a highly relevant note in the final chapter, to wit, that according to Soviet General Lebed's 1997 public statement that, "out of 100 suitcase-sized nuclear bombs manufactured for the Soviet Union's special forces, two-thirds could no longer be accounted for."

To begin with, Van Crevald damns the state for its consistent increase of taxes and its decrease in public services. The state has become, in a word, incompetent and archaic--its grossly over-funded militaries are increasingly helpless in the face of covert and guerrilla violence, at the same time that states are spending more and more on police forces and less and less on a rapidly growing politically deprived disenfranchised underclass.

He ends, as a historical purist, without making recommendations for change. Indeed, he quotes Mao Tse Tung, "The sun will keep rising, trees with keep growing, and women will keep having children."

In many ways Van Crevald's book serves as a capstone to the fifty or so books I have reviewed in the past year, most of them about strategy, threat, intelligence, and the so-called revolution in military affairs, for what I take from this work is that the state does have an extremely important role to play in assuring the common security and prosperity of the people, and we abandon the state at our own peril.

Every nation, but especially the most prosperous nations that have allowed virtually out of control immigration and set no real standards for citizenship, must very carefully examine its policies and premises, both with regard to what constitutes citizenship and loyalty, and what services it must offer to preserve and protect the commonwealth.

I am told that the FBI was prevented from searching the homes of several of the suspects in the weeks prior to the 11 September attacks, because we have granted to our visitors--illegal as well as legal--all those rights that might better be reserved for proven citizens. Van Crevald's work is not, as some might take it, the death knell for the state, but rather the bath of cold water for the statesmen--and for those citizens who care to instruct their politicians on our demand for renewed focus on resurrecting the connection between citizenship, taxation, representation, and security.

The first 3/4 of this book - on the rise of the state - is a fascinating, if occasionally dry, historical look at the organization of power to form the administrative, territorial state. This is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in history, current affairs, and political science. It is written at the high undergraduate level. Unfortunately, while full of valuable insights about the "decline" of the state, the last 1/4 of the book reveals (in his assumptions, his repeated misstatements of fact, and judgments that he doesn't prove, such as his blithe dismissals of Keynes' ideas) that the author is a simple conservative who would be at home with Reagan or Thatcher. This was extremely disappointing after such a promising start.

The book begins a long look at political organization before the state. From leaderless hunter-gatherer groups to kingdoms that confused ownership with the right to rule, until the 14 C CE the reach of the powerful remained strictly limited. With slow and uncertain communications, even supreme autocrats like the Roman emperors could essentially rule in only a single city, delegating authority to lesser versions of themselves to exercise their power elsewhere if they didn't themselves march an army to a disputed location. During the feudal age, power was even more dispersed: there was a pan-national ideology in the Roman Catholic church that competed with temporal rulers for legitimacy and innumerable other localized configurations, such as "free cities", aristocratic holdings with their own peasants, and relatively small kingdoms. When the power holder died, it led with extreme frequency to civil war as the next generation attempted to impose its authority, which was essentially personal ownership. Even powerful princes had diffuse territorial holdings through feudal obligations and rights they gained by marriage or even simple declarations of loyalty, forever obliging them to travel within and outside their realms to maintain the proper balances of power to ensure peace and continued loyalty. Lesser princes and aristocrats found themselves with similar responsibilities on a smaller scale, which inhibited them from developing other capabilities like economic activities for any period of time.

This feudal order began to be overtaken by kings consolidating control and mobilizing resources within better defined territories. The kings had to 1) bring the church under their direct control, sometimes by outright confiscation of resources, at other times by adopting the Protestant Faith, always by forcing pledges of loyalty and creating dependence; 2) co-opt the autonomy of the aristocrats within their borders into service obligations; 3) subordinate the cities under various regimes and systems of rights to their rule and regime; 4) liberate themselves from the Holy Roman Empire and other feudal powers. Unfortunately, it is unclear from the book as to why this occurred at the time that it did. However, the reason was clear: the kings wanted to wage war more efficiently, particularly with the advent of gun powder in new weapons, leading to the capability of waging "total war" rather than limited territorial skirmishes bound by traditional limits of feudal honor and the like.

The result was the formation of what can be called the modern state. It had a number of innovative characteristics that appeared for the first time. Kings created far more extensive bureaucracies than had ever existed, with up to ten times the personnel that the Romans, Ottomans, or Chinese Emperors had had; their bureaucrats were specialized, increasingly gaining their positions by competence rather than privilege; this ensured a far more solid base for the passage of power from one ruler to another, though it created an entity unto itself that had its own interests and requirements. With their bureaucrats, the kings created an infrastructure that they could essentially direct, in order to collect taxes in a far more efficient manner and less corrupt than the traditional "tax farmers" had been, but also to maintain better transportation and communications networks. On a parallel track, the kings established a monopoly on the use of violence, with both military and police forces that were professionals rather than solely aristocrats. This period ended with the naive optimism of the Enlightenment, when bureaucrats were touted as objective and seeking the good of the people. Beginning with Napoleon's people's army, the next era was one of nationalism, which found their ultimate expression in a new 30 year's war between 1915 and 1945.

The progression of the state's role and use, in the author's view, evolved from military, to the development of more general national capabilities (infrastructure, but also education), and ending in the welfare state. He sees this as a natural progression in which the tendrils of the state demanded more and more resources and ever tighter control on individuals, to the point that it became oppressive, not only in Communist or Fascist regimes but also in capitalist democracies, which he sees as a continuum rather than a difference in kind. A principal tenet of his argument is that the state, with its bureaucracy, has become autonomous from the rulers themselves, a Frankenstein-like apparatus is operating by its own rules and in its own interests.

After 1945, we begin to see the decline of the state. Not only do supranational networks begin to enable citizens to transcend the control of their leaders and bureaucrats (of money, but also information, career options, etc.), but also by the inability of the great powers to wage and win wars - either because of mutual assured destruction with nuclear weapons or the "asymmetrical warfare" that enables terrorists to beat superpowers, e.g. Vietnam and Afghanistan. It is here that the book begins to go off the rails, in my reading. Earlier on, the author had made many judgmental statements, e.g. that bureaucrats were useless "paper pushers" rather than providers of service as well, but here his statements take on a political tinge that violates his discipline as a historian who must maintain scholarly distance.

While I agree that the state has lost much of its omnipotence when organizing the citizens (whether free or oppressed) under its charge, I believe that the author fails to back up his assertions that the actions of the welfare state create as many problems as they solve. He actually states this as if it is proven fact, glossing over extremely complex differences between countries without the attention to nuance that he displayed in the "rise" section. For example, the differences between health care system in EUrope and the US would seem to refute his self-assured arguments regarding the incompetence of all state-run programs: in Europe, better health care is delivered by the state to everyone at just over 1/3 of the cost in the US, where in constrast most of the system is "private" and fails to insure 25% of the citizens at astronomical cost. Further, he asserts that, with rising costs and deteriorating service delivery due to the natural inability of bureaucracies in implementation, the welfare state will inevitably fall and cannot improve itself. He writes as if everyone shares this view as simple fact, yet offers little evidence beyond the occasional anecdote. Finally, the section on the post-state era that is coming is abstruse and a mere 7 pages, falling into generalities like "resourceful people will cope".

He completely lost me in the last 1/4 of the book. I felt growing disgust at the superficial treatment he gives to how complex modern society has become, with instantaneous communications, the intricacy of the new global trade system, and the proliferation of international organizations that must administer such problems as global warming or the management of water resources. Sure, this would require another entire book, but he nonetheless acts as if he can do it in 130 pages. I have other criticisms of the book. Though copyrighted in 1999, most footnotes pre-date the 1980s. The internet is mentioned twice. This makes it feel out of date.

I recommend this book for the 3/4 on the rise of the state. But the 1/4 on its decline must be read far more critically for the reactionary conservative ideology that underpins it. This book will get the reader to think and see certain developments with greater refinement, but there is a glibness to so many of its assertions that it often reads like the work of a political hack. If you accept the assumptions of thatcherite ideology, this will not bother you. But if you want such ideologies placed in context and questioned along with those of Keynes, you will not find that here. As such, there is nothing new in this book, just a very good synthesis of things that serious students should know.

There are already some good reviews so I will only suggest reading the following books instead of, or in addition to this -somehow deficient- work: 1) "War in Human Civilization" by Azar Gat (war explained, not just narrated); 2) "History of Government" by S.E. Finer; and 3) Political Thought: 3.1. and 3.2: "The West and Islam. Religion and Political Thought in World History" plus "A World History of Ancient Political Thought" by Antony Black

Every once in a while you come across a book that goes beyond being interesting or thought-provoking, but is a veritable five lane intellectual super-highway. Martin van Creveld's The Rise and Decline of the State is such a book.

Prof. van Creveld's work revolves around this point: prior to the seventeenth century (with some exceptions) rule was seen as personal. The monarch personally ruled over a given region and the people owed him their loyalty. The state was not the abstract entity that it was to become. The change from personal to abstract rule brought with it profound consequences in virtually all aspects of life.

Along the path from personal to abstract rule, many thinkers and rulers played a role, but Hobbes was decisive. [p. 179.] Also important were Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau.

Of course, personal rule didn't guarantee that you would live in a libertarian paradise. Nonetheless, personal rule carried with it certain obligations: the sovereign (generally as a servant of God) was under the law and his powers were limited. The modern, bureaucratic state has almost unlimited powers. Even worse, the total state often leads to total war. In earlier times, wars between "states" were really quarrels between ruling houses and the common man could escape involvement. Not so with the modern state: you are a citizen of the state and owe it your exclusive allegiance. [p. 185.]

There is a lot more a reviewer could comment on in this book. Prof. van Creveld has all sorts of interesting things to say about the rise of the state and changes in crime, education, war, and the economy.

I do have one quarrel with the book. On page 178, Prof. van Creveld says that Christianity teaches that God "is believed to possess no fewer than three different bodies." Since Prof. van Creveld is not (so far as I can tell) a Mormon, I'm at a loss to see how he came up with that idea.

Lots of good thoughts here, and an interesting historical account of the rise of various types of governance. Unfortunately, when van Creveld talks about things I know about already, he gets a lot of them wrong -- for instance, p222, where he asserts that by 1939, 'every American' was 'issued his or her social security card', and that 'the Dept. of Health and Human Services had been created.' HHS was created in the 1970s, under Carter, and to this day not every citizen has a Soc. Sec. card.

So if so many details are wrong where I know the facts, what about the places where I don't? And if the details are wrong, how good is the big picture?

This book makes you think, and has a lot of good references, but I don't trust its conclusions.

This work illustrates that Martin van Creveld is more than one of our premier military historians and theorists. It demonstrates a grasp of political theory that escapes most of the learned professors that infest the upper strata of our current pundits and political science intelligensia.