First of all, let me repeat my profound admiration for the scale and achievement of Mann’s work as a whole. Indeed, concerning certain issues—like his differing dates for the origins of the welfare state in Europe—the sheer scale of Mann’s work allows him to say, in the words of Walt Whitman, BDo I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes^. I am entirely sympathetic to Mann’s cry that his series is long enough without including more material on India and so on. When it comes to the Bleading edge^ countries of Britain and the USA, to which he devotes most of his later volumes, there is no need to spend much time on a discussion of the role of kinship, for example (with the politically important exception of the southern states of the USA, which Mann hardly mentions). However, it is worth reiterating that this series is entitled The Sources of Social Power, that its first volume is called A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760, that it begins with the origins of organised human societies and a range of ancient peoples, and that Mann extends his IEMP framework far back into history. In this wider context, the omission of kinship as a highly important source of power cannot possibly be seen as valid. Concerning the modern world, Mann dismisses kinship as a mere feature of Bprimitive^ societies. He would probably do better not to say that in India, which, in the estimation of its own elites at least, represents modern democracy in Asia. There, kinship has been central to democratic politics both in terms of kinship-based vote banks at the bottom and political dynasties at the top; insofar as dynastic politics have been eclipsed at the centre (though not in the states), this has been at the hands of another sort of force that Mann ignores or downplays, a highly culturally specific form of ideological nationalism embodied in Narendra Modi’s BJP and RSS. While Mann chooses largely to omit India, in his final volume, he does naturally devote considerable attention—and admiration—to China and its tremendous resurgence in recent decades. There is a mass of evidence to show that kinship ties, although weaker than in the past, continue to permeate Chinese society—including in the Communist Party and its leadership. Indeed, one key aspect of President Xi Jinping’s struggle against corruption in Int J Polit Cult Soc (2016) 29:221–223 DOI 10.1007/s10767-015-9214-2