Bret Devereaux

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

Moreover, abandoning the 'state' label completely makes the process of state formation - with its tendency to 'ripple' outward as non-state peoples form states to compete with neighboring states - harder for the student to discern. 15/21

Of course we should stress in our scholarship and to students that state-formation is not one way! The Roman state forms, fails, reforms, fails *again*, reforms and then fragments leaving successor states and a large zone of non-state polities over western Europe. 16/21

And it's a vision of cultural evolution which conveniently culminates in Western-style states. I wonder why that is?

It doesn't though. Qing-period China? Clearly a state. Han period China - also clearly a state! Tokugawa-era Japan? Very clearly a state. There are indigenous American states too - lots in Mesoamerica, but I think the Iroquois also probably ought to qualify.

Of the societies thought to be 'pristine' states (states that developed in the absence of contact with other states), exactly none of them were in Europe!

'State' isn't a value judgement, it is an organizational descriptor. Steppe nomads? Super-successful, but generally not organized into states. Classical-period Sparta? Pretty clearly a state to me, but also pretty clearly a garbage society.