The main themes of this book are prefigured in Gianfranco Poggi's two significant earlier works on the rise and character of the modern state: The Development of the Modern State: A Sociological Introduction, 1978, and The State: Its Nature, Development, and Prospects, 1990, (especially in the first chapter of the latter). In connection with his discussion of state formation, Poggi put forward the view that political power is one particular form of social power and is distinguished from other types of social power by its control of the means of violence. In the current work, Poggi undertakes the considerable task of explicating power in its various forms. He abstracts the concept of power from the historical context of his previous works and, with characteristic lucidity, details the various forms of social power and their interrelations.