ABSTRACT
The true state would begin to emerge in Mesopotamia and then elsewhere throughout the world in places like Mesoamerica, Peru, and Rome. Just as chiefdoms evolved through fits and starts, or cycles of rise and fall, so too did state formations driven by political entrepreneurship marked by near constant expansion until the upper-limits were reached and, then, followed by either stasis or rapid decline, especially from warfare. Once city-states became the dominant political form of organization, they grew quite rapidly owing to the fact that agricultural intensification was steady, male aggression and warfare were constant, writings on past political innovations could be used as blueprints for political reorganization, while expanding regional trade networks could generate wealth for building up state formations. The mythologies rarely changed in fundamental ways but were, in fact, stereotyped across time and place, even as the name and descriptive elements were shuffled and changed.
