This collection of Tilly's best writings on social change, states and institutions, urbanisation and historical sociology reveals the basis for his indelible influence on key questions in history and social science.

Chapter 1 Foreword Part 2 Introduction: Ways of Knowing Chapter 3 Future Social Science Chapter 4 Invisible Elbow Part 5 Contention and Social Change Chapter 6 The Modernization of Political Conflict in France Chapter 7 Does Modernization Breed Revolution?: Cities, Bourgeois, and Revolution in France Part 8 Power and Inequality Chapter 9 War Making and State Making as Organized Crime Chapter 10 Democracy is a Lake Chapter 11 Parlimentarization of Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758-1834 Part 12 Population Processes Chapter 13 Population and Pedagogy in France Chapter 14 Migration in Modern European History Chapter 15 Demographic Origins of the European Proletariat Chapter 16 Tilly On the Past as a Sequence of Futures