Vol. 1. THE ERA OF STATE FORMATION: GENERAL CONTEXT OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION DURING THE FORMATION OF THE STATE. VOL. 2. EVOLUTION OF STATEHOOD: FROM THE EARLY STATE TO THE MATURE ONE. VOL. 3. POLITICAL CROSS-SECTION OF THE HISTORICAL PROCESS.

Moscow: KomKniga Publ., 2007. 272 p.; 368 p.; 240 p.

The reviewed monograph continues a number of domestic studies of the 1990s-2000s devoted to rethinking the essence and ways of the process of politogenesis. In particular, see collective works: [Alternative paths to Early statehood, 1995; Alternative Paths to Civilization, 2000; Archaic Society..., 1991; Horse alternative to social evolution, 2002; Early State..., 2006; Early Forms of political organization..., 1995; Civilizational models of Politogenesis, 2002]. The key idea that unites these works is to show the multiplicity of ways of state formation, on the one hand, and the non-universality of the state as a form of socio - political organization of super-complex post-primitive societies, on the other. The author of the monograph has already made a significant contribution to the development of this area of modern Russian political anthropology (see, for example: [Grinin, 2001-2006; Grinin, 2006]). In his peer-reviewed work, he summarizes the results of his many years of research in this area.

According to the definition of L. E. Grinin, " the state is... a system of special (specialized) institutions, bodies and rules that ensures the external and internal political life of society; at the same time, this system is an organization of power, management and order that is separated from the population, which must have the following characteristics: a) sovereignty (autonomy); b) the supremacy, legitimacy and reality of power within the framework of the state. a certain territory and a certain circle of people; c) the ability to force them to fulfill their demands, as well as to change attitudes and norms" (vol. 1, p. 23). Based on this definition and understanding of the phenomenon of the state, the author develops an original typology of "stages of statehood development", which, in our opinion, deserves attention, especially taking into account the fact that the approach proposed by the author lacks the features of a rough one-line evolutionism.-

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The author considers the "stages" identified by him as replacing each other only on a global, general historical scale, but not necessarily in the history of individual, specific countries and peoples.

In contrast to the widespread two-part schemes (pre-industrial and industrial, early and mature state), L. E. Grinin distinguishes three types of state: "early", "developed" and "mature". In many respects, it is based on the typology of H. J. M. Klassen and P. Skalnik [The Early State, 1978], who distinguished the stages of an early and mature state, while, for example, the French kingdom of the XII-XIII centuries. Klassen sees it as a mature state (Claessen, 1985). But the French state of this period was no less different from the French Republic of the twentieth century than it was from the Frankish kingdom, which Klassen regards as an early state. Therefore, it seems quite logical to refer the "mature states" of antiquity and the Middle Ages, on the one hand, and the more complex states of Modern times, on the other hand, to fundamentally different types (in the terminology of L. E. Grinin, respectively, to "developed" and "mature" statehood). Among the significant differences between a mature state and a developed one, the author notes that political institutions are much more specialized and have significantly more clearly defined functions. We are talking about the emergence only in such societies of a fully formed bureaucratic apparatus and, accordingly, a social stratum of professional administrators, as described by M. Weber [Weber, 1947, p. 333-334].

For the early state, according to L. E. Grinin, the presence of a sufficiently well-formed and specialized administrative apparatus is not mandatory at all. As for the differences between the early state and non-state forms of political organization, the author focuses on the fact that they consist "in the growth of the importance of the supreme power and in its greater ability to rebuild the traditional structure of society; in the emergence or consolidation of new ways of forming managerial personnel and new ways of managing and controlling society; and formalization of political and managerial decisions... "(vol. 1, p. 126; author's italics).

Especially important for understanding the author's concept of the history and theory of the state is his postulate that "the watershed between state and non-state entities... It lies not only in the presence or absence of a particular trait, but in the greater or lesser development of certain traits and their special combination, as well as in the evolutionary capabilities of polities of different types" (vol.1, p. 127). The author argues that the state was not an inevitable result of the process of politogenesis in each particular case, moreover, only a unique, rather rare combination of a number of factors led to its formation. However, as L. E. Grinin emphasizes, this does not mean that all societies that were not states were lower than states in terms of their socio-political and cultural development. In this regard, he introduces the concept of "analog of the state". At the same time, according to the author, "the evolution of the state was the general line of political genesis, and its alternative lines were lateral" (vol.1, p. 13).

The book is written on a huge factual material covering the period from the beginning of the formation of the first states and their analogues (IV millennium BC) to the present and the entire space in which the processes of formation and evolution of statehood unfolded. In particular, data on the history and ethnography of the East - the countries and peoples of Asia, Africa, and Oceania-were of crucial importance for the formation of author's concepts. A significant advantage of L. E. Grinin's work is that it avoids simplistic juxtaposition of the development paths of the East and the West. On the contrary, in his monograph, the world-historical process appears in its entirety, due to the extreme variety of directions and forms of socio-political evolution, which cannot be reduced to two, and supposedly fundamentally different, variants.

In our opinion, L. E. Grinin's characterization of the radical complication of the state systems of the countries of both Asia (the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and Mughal India) and Europe (including Russia) in the 16th century as processes of forming a developed state is quite justified. At the same time, he considers these processes separately, without paying sufficient attention to their synchronicity and without offering an explanation for this synchronicity, although the reason for the latter seems quite obvious to us. We are talking about a "military revolution" (see, for example: [Downing, 1992]), related to the spread of effective

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In this context, it seems that the factor of the "military revolution" should be given a little more attention in this context, as well as a fundamentally new level of financial expenditures, a radical improvement in the tax mechanism, a qualitatively higher level of development of the bureaucratic apparatus.

Other shortcomings of L. E. Grinin's work can also be noted, for example, a certain inconsistency in the attribution of some of the political entities considered by him. Thus, the polities of Tahiti before the arrival of Europeans are sometimes called "states" (vol. 1, p. 195), then "analogs of the state" (ibid., p. 202, note 136), then it is simply said that "there are great doubts whether they can be considered states at all..." (vol. 2, p. 136). 18). Nevertheless, in general, the reviewed work is an undoubted creative success of the author. The interested reader received a serious study, which is valuable both for its conceptual basis and scientific foundation, and for its vivid polemic, which encourages further search for ways to solve these problems.

list of literature

Alternative paths to early statehood. Vladivostok: Dalnauka Publ., 1995.

Alternative Paths to Civilization, Moscow: Logos Publ., 2000.

Archaicheskoe obshchestvo: uzlovye problemy sotsiologii razvitiya [Archaic Society: nodal problems of Development Sociology], vol. 1-2, Moscow: Institute of History of the USSR, USSR Academy of Sciences, 1991.

Grinin L. E. the Genesis of the state as part of the process of transition from barbarism to civilization (the General context of social evolution during the formation of the early state) // Philosophy and society. 2001. N 4; 2006. N 2.

Grinin L. E. Rannee gosudarstvo i ego analogi [Early state and its analogues]. Volgograd: Uchitel Publ., 2006.

Nomadic Alternative to Social Evolution, Moscow: Institute of Africa, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2002.

The early state, its alternatives and analogues. Volgograd: Uchitel Publ., 2006.

Rannie formy politicheskoi organizatsii: ot pervobytnosti k gosudarstvennosti [Early forms of Political Organization: from primitiveness to statehood].
Civilizational Models of Politogenesis, Moscow: Institute of Africa, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2002.

Claessen H.J.M. From Franks to France - The Evolution of a Political Organization // Development and Decline. The Evolution of Sociopolitical Organization. South Hadley: Bergin and Garvey, 1985.

Downing B. The Military Revolution and Political Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

The Early State. The Hague: Mouton, 1978.

Weber M. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: Oxford University Press, 1947.

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