I read this book for Wilson's theory of government in the first part of the book: its nature, functions and objectives. It was interesting, as I expected. After that this book contains a great number of chapters on the history of government in Europe and the evolution of governments in various European countries and the United States. Wilson's analysis of the United States may still have some contemporary interest, but other than that the book must be outdated by now. I didn't read any of these latter chapters carefully but I was still impressed by the vast amount of learning Wilson exhibits in them (insofar as he actually wrote them himself - this was not the case for all chapters in my edition of this book).

History of government