Chapter 1 theorises the state as a set of carceral, administrative, legal, and extractive systems which are central to racial capitalism. Drawing on Cedric Robinson, this chapter charts how the state arose as a revanchist response to the popular struggles for freedom, equality, and democracy that swept through Europe in the late medieval period. This revolution from above saw the emergence of whiteness as politics came to be associated with domestication, mastery, and rulership. State-building was thus from the beginning a racial-colonial project, entailing both internal centralisation and domination as well as external conquest and enslavement. Since then, politics as we know it has revolved around governance, domestication, and mastery.