Collaboration space: The state, administration, politics

See the first post of this series for how to use these spaces.

How did the military elites who dominated the Middle East in the Middle Period exploit the societies they ruled? Were states administered by formal bureaucratic structures and hierarchies? If not, what accounts for the success of ruling groups in administering large and complex societies over time?

Lapidus, I., Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA, 1967).

Mottahedeh, R., Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (Princeton, 1980).

Chamberlain, M, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190-1350 (Cambridge, UK, 1994).