**Intact Gift Giving Condition book**

Ranging in scope from the Glorious Revolution to New Labour, it provides a fluent and comprehensive introduction to the changing shape and role of the British state. This book is an unprecedented synthesis of the literature on state development that explains how and why the contours of the British state have changed over the last three centuries. Philip Harling's main theme is the dramatic broadening of the state's functions and its cost over the last three centuries, and most noticeably over the last one. As late as 1870, most Britons assumed that the only tasks that should be entrusted to the central government were issues such as the defence of the realm, the maintenance of public order, and the provision of basic amenities such as street lighting.