The modern state is hugely important in our everyday lives. It takes nearly half our income in taxes. It registers our births, marriages and deaths. It educates our children and pays our pensions. Yet most of us would struggle to say exactly what the state is. This comprehensive and provoking introduction helps us to understand exactly what the state is. Having placed it in an historical context, Christopher Pierson explores a set of key relationships for modern states: state and economy, state and society, state and citizen. He examines the seemingly chaotic and frighteningly violent relations between states and addresses the question of the future of the state and its possible disappearance in each of these contexts.