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In Dutch society, gathering together to talk and argue about the communal future has become an increasingly important means of social integration. This study argues that, as a means of distinction for the elite, the stylization of meetings has replaced the stylization of eating and drinking. The restraint of physical violence was the "sine qua non" of meetings, and the long-term development of meetings coincides with the organization of violence within basic entities, tribes, villages, towns, nation states and confederations, which are, in effect, "meeting units". The book seeks to provide a picture of how meeting rules and behaviour have changed over time, and answer the question of why people hold meetings.