Details: Diamond classifies societies, cautiously, into bands, tribes, chiefdoms and states. These vary along many dimensions which in he divides into several classes: Membership, Government, Religion, Economy and Society. Diamond then goes on to describe one way in which these societies differ. Bands and tribes are egalitarian while nations are kleptocratic.
Details: Diamond quickly disposes of several theories questioning why societies evolved this way. For example, Aristotle thought that the state was the natural society - but this is not so, for most of mankind's