What are You reading?

[applegrove]

69. Patricia Crone's Pre-Industrial Societies to figure out where

the GOP wants us to go. This is a new edition. "But the monarchs fear of losing control over the elite also had the effect of suppressing energy that could have been used to good effect" or "it is thus not surprising that states were brittle structures which easily collapsed under internal stress or external pressure. The low degree of integration on the one hand and the minimal services performed by the state on the other meant that there was little to hold them together" or "keeping local communities separate and politically passive was thus a prime objective of pre-industrial governments". I keep falling off my chair (so to speak).