"This book began with an observation - an observation so obvious that it is usually overlooked, or simply taken for granted: Korea, Japan and Vietnam and copied an enormous amount from China. Over the years, and in conversations between the two of us, that observation slowly turned into an idea. That idea was turned into an actual research agenda at the prompting of Anna Grzymala-Busse, when she presented a paper as part of the USC Center for International Studies working paper series that Dave ran while he directed that center. Encouraged by her new approach to European state formation, we began to pursue our idea about state formation in East Asia. The result is this book. Thanks to Didac Cerault, Ben Graham, Tanner Greer, Jacques Hymans, Pat James, Saori Katada, Ellen Kim, Sun Joo Kim, Na Young Lee, Jonathan Markowitz, Sebastian Mazzucca, Gerardo Munck, John Park, Kyuri Park, and Sixiang Wang for thoughtful comments on earlier drafts. Thanks to Hendrik Spruyt for his careful comments and for suggesting the title of this book. We particularly thank Anna Grzymala-Busse, R. Bin Wong, and all the participants of a manuscript review hosted by the USC Korean Studies Institute on January 8, 2021, for reading the entire manuscript and for so generously giving of their time and energy to help make the final product better. We also thank the careful reviewers at Cambridge University Press, and John Haslam for his usual superb editorial advice on this project"--