The Emergence of Civilisation is a contribution to our understanding of the development of urban culture and social stratification in the Near Eastern region. Charles Maisels argues that our present assumptions about state formation, based on 19th-century speculations, are wrong. His investigation illuminates the changes in scale, complexity and hierarchy which accompany the development of civilization. The book draws conclusions about the dynamics of social change and the processes of social evolution in general, applying those concepts to the rise of Greece and Rome, and to the collapse of the classical Mediterranean world.