David Waldner's book is a rigorously argued and impressively sustained account of the relationship between state-building and economic growth in four late-developing countries: South Korea, Syria, Taiwan, and Turkey. By systematically and crisply using a comparative method to bring a unified story to these different histories, Waldner demonstrates in a masterly way the benefits of genuine comparative inquiry; contributes to our understanding of the painful results of economic development in the Middle East; and uses Middle Eastern cases to advance our understanding of the complicated and mediated linkage between state formation and economic development. This ambitious book deserves a wide audience.