This book addresses the question of how 20th century social scientists have attempted to understand and explain the enormous social change that marked out the 19th and early 20th centuries and continues to transform our world today. The approach used in the text is both comparative and historical. Comparisons are made between the processes of statemaking and collective action of various states in order to identify variations or links between them. The book reviews a number of contributions to the comparative analysis of big structures and large processes. It proposes accounts - often unconventional - of national states, capitalist organization, urbanization, industrialization and other big structures and large processes.