The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century
ISBN: 9780520948570
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of California Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Europe -- Economic conditions; Economic history -- 16th century; Capitalism;

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.


Wallerstein studied at Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in sociology in 1959. His work has focused primarily on what he calls "world systems theory," which deals with the socioeconomic dynamics of global dependence and interdependence. As Wallerstein sees it, the wealthy nations of the world control and manipulate the destinies of weaker nations and keep them dependent. The world system is an outcome of historic global, political, and ideological forces leading to Western hegemony. (Bowker Author Biography)
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