Immanuel Wallerstein’s highly influential, multi-volume opus, The Modern World-System, is one of this century’s greatest works of social science. An innovative, panoramic reinterpretation of global history, it traces the emergence and development of the modern world from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.
This volume traces the rise of the capitalist world-economy in the sixteenth century. Wallerstein argues that the modern world system originated in Europe during this time, driven by the expansion of capitalist agriculture. He discusses how Western Europe's economic changes led to a new form of world economy based on a division of labor that was not only international but also exploitative of periphery regions by core regions.
This book was written during a year's stay at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Countless authors have sung its praises. Aside from splendid surroundings, unlimited library and secretarial assistance, and a ready supply of varied scholars to consult at a moment's notice, what the center offers is to leave the scholar to his own devices, for good or ill. Would that all men had such wisdom. The final version was consummated with the aid of a grant from the Social Sciences Grants Subcommittee of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research of McGill University.
"I can say without hesitation that this is the finest book of analytic history that I have read in the past ten years. That Europe had formed a world-economy around herself historians knew. But only in general. What they had never thought about with the keenness and intelligence of I. Wallerstein's thought is that this entity provides a new framework for the subject of European history, that it is compelling, a new explanation, a new classification, indeed a revolutionary one, of received knowledge and current thought."
Each volume of Wallerstein's work provides a detailed and complex analysis of different historical periods, contributing significantly to the understanding of how the modern world system, characterized by a complex network of economic, political, and social relations, came to be.
