The endurance of medieval forms of constitutional government and the revolution of early modern warfare, which required state centralization of resources, accounted for the democratic trajectory of western and central European countries. After reviewing forms of late medieval government and warfare, the author uses a comparative framework to evaluate Prussia and France as absolutist cases and England, Sweden, and the Netherlands as republican exemplars. The work is a useful riposte to class and economic determinism, but lacks truly original expression, the text being heavily footnoted with citations of generally accepted historiography. It is also written as if for a graduate seminar: impossible not to learn, but better off with Fukuyama.