Originally published in 1978, this global comparative survey investigates the political, social and economic features of feudalism. While Europe remains its point of departures, it considers many other societies and their history, such as China and Japan, Ethiopia and Latin America, explaining what about them is described as feudal and why. The book spans a period ranging from Confucius and Herodotus to Mao Tse-tung. It also surveys and compares different instances of such phenomena as vassalage and military lordship, feudal kingship, clientage and patronage, serfdom, debt bondage and the feudalism which has so often been the target of modern reformers and revolutionaries.