Bret Devereaux

I think it is a bit premature to call a position 'dismissed' which is still standard in narratives for the early republic and continues to appear in the scholarship of specialists in the field. Maybe that's coming, but it doesn't seem to be here yet. 8/21

Second - I don't know if Hall would endorse M.H. Hansen's definition of a state needing to be "public power above both ruler and ruled" but I think that added rider isn't very helpful, as it moves to exclude states built around truly personal rulership. 8/21

But history is full of states which achieved a monopoly on the legitimate use of force while still being personal possessions of an individual or a family; we still have some of these (e.g. Saudi Arabia). I don't think the state as an abstract beyond the ruler is necessary. 9/21

And I think an excessively narrow definition of the 'state,' when they emerge and are used, has an unfortunately tendency to 'define out' non-Western states where the definition is otherwise met. 10/21

More to the center of the argument, the proscription of abandoning 'state' for 'community' I think still airbrushes an important distinction for comparing and understanding different polities. 11/21

Working at the meeting point of the Middle Roman Republic - where the state/non-state/proto-state question-marks of the sixth and fifth century had long since resolved into a clear state (perched atop a tributary empire and so complex in form) and truly non-state peoples... 12/21

...like those of much of Gaul and Spain, the state/non-state typology still has tremendous value for understanding differences in the structures of these communities. 13/21

The idea of 'state formation' is also valuable in situating Iberian and Gallic communities on a continuum of social change w/ Rome, at different points, rather than treating as completely alien forms of social org. because in many ways they are more similar than different. 14/21