Pueblo Indians

By investigating, for example, changes in the residential patterns and dietary habits of Pueblo Indians, they can reconstruct the way that warfare and environmental stress shaped the nature of social organization. Contrary to the popular believe that primitive human societies were tribal, tribes arose only after the emergence of settled societies and agriculture. Pre-agricultural societies were bands or nomadic families of hunter-gatherers. Within a band-level group, there was no political or economic order and bands integrated to form tribes with the coming of cooperative farming and its benefits. Belief in the reality of dead ancestors binds individuals together on a far larger scale than is possible in a family- or band-level society.

Constant warfare brought about the need for military organisation, taxation and technological advancement. Kinship was suppressed in favour of impersonal administration. The Qin state builders saw early that the kinship networks of earlier ages were impediments to the accumulation of power, so they implemented policies deliberately intended to replace them with a system that tied individuals directly to the state. This doctrine was called Legalism. Confucianism exists and imposes moral accountability. Chinese development varied vastly from European development because of several factors, including the geography, culture and the lack of leadership in Europe.

Indian development varied from that of the Chinese as India had the concept of religion embedded in their political system very early on. The Brahmanic religion and the caste system contributed greatly to the societal development. The huge territory of India never developed a single language or a single political power. Fukuyama identifies the

Mauryas as the first and most successful indigenous rulers of India. He mentions Kautilya’s Arthasastra as the source of political information about the Maurya

This can come about by the tendency of institutions to be preserved and not change with new circumstances.

Societies from Rome to China attributed military setbacks to inadequate observance of religious obligations; instead of spending time reorganizing and reequipping the army, they devoted resources to increased rites and sacrifices. Another form of decay is repatrimonialisation. Favouritism of friends or family is a default in human nature. Fukuyama goes on to mention various examples of political decay including the downfall of the Han Dynasty by aristocrats and the system of the Catholic Church forbidding priests to have families breaking down. Analysis

Fukuyama has based the subject matter of the book on three political institutions- the state, the rule of law and political accountability. His method of answering the question posed by the book follows clear logic. He wants to allow the reader to understand how political order originated and what is necessary for a state to be