When does a bandit become a monarch? When does a gang become a government? And is organised crime at the heart of every modern state?On a thrilling whistle-stop tour of how the world’s criminal underbelly has shaped state-making, capitalism, globalisation and all forms of so-called legitimate power, ‘Homo Criminalis’ shows the emergence of modern society through the evolution of the underworld and its crimes. From Chinese banditry and eighteenth-century English tea smuggling to today’s cocaine submarines and the high-tech crimes of tomorrow, it shows us how the world’s dark underbelly shapes us, no matter how we try to outpace it.