"Devised to legitimize the Republic of China's claim over Inner Asia, the Sinocentric paradigm stems from the Open Door Policy and Chinese nationalism. Advanced against the conquest theory, and rationalized as the pathfinding ecological theory, it is an evolutionary materialist scheme that became the vision of history. Exposing the initial agenda of this paradigm and revealing its fundamental contradictions, The Nomadic Leviathan debunks it as a myth. Resurrecting the conquest theory, and reinforcing it with the idea of extrahuman transportation, this book places pastoralism at the origin of the state and civilization, and the Eurasian steppe at the center of human history; the political emerges as the primary and fundamental order defining the social and economic"-- Provided by publisher.

The habit of thought --The state before the Sinocentric paradigm -- Inner Asia before the Sinocentric paradigm -- The Sinocentric scheme : aim, origins, and theory -- Kinship turn and evolutionary schemes -- Beyond evolutionary materialism : the military pathway -- The Sinocentric paradigm in (frontier) history -- The nomadic leviathan : extrahuman transportation and the military constitution -- The tribal inner Asia : Biblical ethnology.