Political theorists from Plato to the present have concerned themselves not only with the nature of the polity as we know it, but with how it came to be, what purposes it serves, and by what stages it has developed. The last item, however, has more often than not been slighted. This lack now forces itself on our attention for an obvious reason: Never before have so many “new states” come into being in so short a span of time and never before have students of politics been provided with so many living examples of states at all stages of development, many of them conspicuously failing to perform vital functions, frequently to the extent that disorder and violent change prevail.