A Biography of the State

Book excerpt: One of the over-arching political questions of the last two centuries has been to understand how capitalism has managed to survive. The answer from those on the left has often focused on the State. While Marx predicted collapse and the rise of socialism, theorists of the State have focused on the process by which capitalism managed to escape its fate and endure against all odds. This book follows the development of modern State theory from Gramsci and Nicos Poulantzas, to Stuart Hall, Pierre Bourdieu, Erik Wright, and the recent writers Jules Boykoff, Naomi Klein and George Monbiot. This book provides the reader with a fresh interpretation of these very important ideas. It allows the reader to come face to face with the original texts with as little confusion as possible. This book will be of interest to senior undergraduates and graduate students in politics, sociology and cultural studies, as well as lay readers keen to gain the theoretical tools to understand what the State is up to in the 21st century. These theories are among the most elaborate and sophisticated political theories ever written, and they tell us much about our present political situation, and what may happen in the future.