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Index
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Figures
Map
Tables
Contributors
An introduction to world system history: Toward a social science of long-term change
World history in its proper context
Holism and the agent-structure problem
The historical long term
Intellectual breadth
Appraisal
Plan of the book
Part I: General perspectives on world system history
1: The five thousand year world system in theory and praxis
Theoretical categories and operational definitions
Putting Europe in its Afro-Eurasian place
Capitalism?
Clarifying some misunderstandings
Possibilities for collaborative research
Conclusion
2: World system evolution
The concept of world system
World system evolution
Eras of the world system
World system processes
Globalization
World system and the evolution of modern humans
Conclusion
Notes
3: Civilizations, world systems and hegemonies
Fundamentals of a civilizations-as-world-systems approach
Incidental findings on civilizations/world systems
Cores and peripheries
Hegemony and its cognates
General queries
Conclusion
4: Comparing world-systems to explain social evolution
Our concepts
Spatial boundaries: a multicriteria approach
Toward a theory of transformations
Incorporation, merger, and semiperipheral development
World-systems evolution
World-system dynamics: pulsations and rise and fall
Qualitative differences in rise and fall
Conclusion
Acknowledgment
Notes
Part II: From regional and sectoral to a global perspective
5: Envisioning global change: A long-term perspective
Understanding the past
Beyond specialization
Conceptualizing global change
Some regularities
Notes
6: Concretizing the continuity argument in global systems analysis
Probing the concrete structures of global systems
Continuities in modes of cultural identification
Globalization, class and elite formation
Conclusion
7: On the evolution of global systems, part I: the Mesopotamian heartland
A systems theory model of hierarchical levels
Mesopotamia: the land between the two rivers
The hierarchization process
Different forms of centralization
From higher unity to power center
The Uruk system
Toward part II
8: State and economy in ancient Egypt
Introducing Egyptian economics
Markets
Agriculture and the State
Keynes
Inflation, interest and money
Money and investment
An historical perspective
Conclusion
Notes
9: World systems and social change in agrarian societies, 3000 BC to AD 1500
Critique
Reformulation
Part III: Global macro-historical processes
10: Information and transportation nets in world history
11: Neglecting Nature: World accumulation and core-periphery relations, 2500 BC to AD 1990
The exploitation of Nature: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
Forest exploitation in world history: capital accumulation, core-periphery relations and environmental limits
AD 1500 to 1990: Asia
Conclusion
12: Accumulation based on symbolic versus intrinsic ‘productivity’: Conceptualizing unequal exchange from Spondylus shells to fossil fuels
Towards a transdisciplinary understanding of accumulation
Modes of conversion and modes of accumulation
Modes of accumulation in the pre-Columbian Andes
Andean cultural history as shifts in center-periphery relationships: outlines of a topological interpretation
Accumulation based on symbolic versus intrinsic ‘productivity’
On the social prerequisites of industrialism: the inverse relationship of exchange value and productive potential
Conclusion
Acknowledgment
Notes
13: War and warfare: Scales of conflict in long-range analysis
Scales in long-range analysis
Scale of belligerence: war and warfare
Scale of process: macroprocesses and microprocesses
Conclusion
Acknowledgement
Notes
14: The evolution of the world-city system, 3000 BCE to AD 2000
Cities and the world-city system
An evolving world-city system
Adaptation in the world-city system
Conclusion
Part IV: Comparison, cumulation, cooperation
15: Comparing approaches to the social science history of the world system
The continuing world system
The comparative study of world-systems
The engulfing world system
Comparison
Conclusion
Note
16: Cumulation and direction in world system history
Cumulation
On the meaning of our method
Academic praxis: a note on strategy
Bibliography
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