The chapter introduces the goal of the book, which is to examine the strategies that state-builders use in their approach toward religion. It also introduces the book’s central research question: How can we explain the power arrangements between state and religion that emerge during the state building process? The chapter argues that in the 19th and early 20th century, states made some of their most durable advances in sovereignty and hegemony in countries not where they excluded religious elites, but where they instead embedded them in nascent, state-centric structures of education and law. Conceding a role for religious actors in education and law during this period—in exchange for their tacit compliance with centralization—set in motion a dynamic that weakened religious institutions. The gradual erosion of traditional religious institutions in turn meant that, during the period of national independence, reformers had little to no need to wage massive force against a collective religious resistance. In fact, joining forces with the religious establishment actually facilitated certain aspects of state centralization, providing otherwise scarce symbolic and institutional resources.