In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise, accessible, and comprehensive introduction to the revolutionary approach to understanding the history and development of the modern world that he pioneered thirty years ago. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social sciences and a common point of reference within discussions of global processes. Now, for the first time in one volume, Wallerstein offers a succinct summary of world-systems analysis and a clear outline of the modern world-system, describing the structures of knowledge upon which it is based, its mechanisms, and its future. Intended for general readers, students, and experienced practitioners alike, this book presents the definitive overview of world-systems analysis by its original architect.
Wallerstein explains the defining characteristics of world-systems analysis: its emphasis on world-systems rather than nation-states, insistence on the need to consider historical processes as they unfold over long periods of time, and demand that bodies of knowledge usually viewed as distinct from one another - such as history, political science, economics, and sociology - be combined and considered within a single analytical framework. He describes the world-system as a social reality comprised of interconnected nations, firms, households, classes, and identity groups of all kinds. He identifies and highlights the significance of the key moments in the evolution of the modern world-system: the development of a global capitalist economy in the sixteenth-century, the beginning of two centuries of liberal centrism in the French Revolution of 1789, and the undermining of that centrism in the global revolts of 1968, which triggered a terminal structural crisis within the modern world-system.
In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise, accessible, and comprehensive introduction to the revolutionary approach to understanding the history and development of the modern world that he pioneered thirty years ago. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social sciences and a common point of reference within discussions of global processes. Now, for the first time in one volume, Wallerstein offers a succinct summary of world-systems analysis and a clear outline of the modern world-system, describing the structures of knowledge upon which it is based, its mechanisms, and its future. Intended for general readers, students, and experienced practitioners alike, this book presents the definitive overview of world-systems analysis by its original architect.
Wallerstein explains the defining characteristics of world-systems analysis: its emphasis on world-systems rather than nation-states, insistence on the need to consider historical processes as they unfold over long periods of time, and demand that bodies of knowledge usually viewed as distinct from one another - such as history, political science, economics, and sociology - be combined and considered within a single analytical framework. He describes the world-system as a social reality comprised of interconnected nations, firms, households, classes, and identity groups of all kinds. He identifies and highlights the significance of the key moments in the evolution of the modern world-system: the development of a global capitalist economy in the sixteenth-century, the beginning of two centuries of liberal centrism in the French Revolution of 1789, and the undermining of that centrism in the global revolts of 1968, which triggered a terminal structural crisis within the modern world-system.
Acknowledgments vii
To Start: Understanding the World in Which We Live ix
1. Historical Origins of World-Systems Analysis: From Social
Science Disciplines to Historical Social Sciences 1
2. The Modern World-System as a Capitalist World-Economy:
Production, Surplus-Value, and Polarization 23
3. The Rise of the States-System: Sovereign Nation-States,
Colonies, and the Interstate System 41
4. The Creation of a Geoculture: Ideologies, Social Movements,
Social Science 60
5. The Modern World-System in Crisis: Bifurcation, Chaos, and
Choices 76
Glossary 91
Bibliographical Guide 101
Index 105
An introduction to world systems analysis by its creator.
Immanuel Wallerstein is a Senior Research Scholar at Yale University and Director of the Fernand Braudel Center at Binghamton University. Among his many books are The Modern World-System (three volumes); The End of the World as We Know It: Social Science for the Twenty-first Century; Utopistics: Or, Historical Choices of the Twenty-first Century; and Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms. He is the recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award and is a former president of the International Sociological Association.
"At a time when globalization is at the center of international debate from Davos to Porto Alegre, an introduction to 'world-systems analysis,' an original approach to world development since the sixteenth century, is timely and relevant. This is a lucidly written and comprehensive treatment of its origins, controversies, and development by Immanuel Wallerstein, its undoubted pioneer and most eminent practitioner."--Eric Hobsbawm, author of Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life and The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century "Immanuel Wallerstein's mind can reach as far and encompass as much as anyone's in our time. The world, to him, is a vast, integrated system, and he makes the case for that vision with an elegant and almost relentless logic. But he also knows that to see as he does requires looking through a very different epistemological lens than the one most of us are in the habit of using. So his gift to us is not just a new understanding of how the world works but a new way of apprehending it. A brilliant work on both scores."--Kai Erikson, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of Sociology and American Studies, Yale University
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