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University of California Press

The Modern World-System I

Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century
by Immanuel Wallerstein (Author)
Paperback eBook
Price: $36.95 / £31.00
Publication Date: Jun 2011
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 440
ISBN: 9780520267572
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 9 b/w photographs, 1 table
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About the Book

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.

About the Author

Immanuel Wallerstein (1930-2019) was Senior Research Scholar at Yale University and the former President of the International Sociological Association. He was the author of many books, including The Modern World-System, Volumes I-IV.

From Our Blog

Immanuel Wallerstein: In Memoriam

We are deeply saddened to hear of Yale Senior Research Scholar and true giant in the fields of sociology, economics, and world systems analysis Immanuel Watterstein's passing at age 88. Wallerstein’s highly influential, multivolume opus, The Modern World-System I, II, III, and IV, is one of this ce
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Quotation Credits
Prologue to the 2011 Edition

Introduction: On the study of social change
1. Medieval prelude
2. The new European division of labor: c. 1450–1640
3. The absolute monarchy and statism
4. From Seville to Amsterdam: the failure of empire
5. The strong core-states: class-formation and international
commerce
6. The European world-economy: periphery versus external arena
7. Theoretical reprise

Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"A tour de force that brings together and makes sense of a wealth of diverse historical studies which often seem to contradict each other...an extremely formidable achievement."
— New York Times Book Review
"A heroic and impressive achievement. . . . an exhilarating and satisfying book. . . . it explains more convincingly and sympathetically than anything I have read hitherto the actual process of economic and social development on a European-world scale."
— American Journal of Sociology
"A remarkable book. The author has a theory and uses it to explain the structure and course of public events in Europe and its trans-oceanic annexes in the sixteenth century. The effect is dazzling and dizzying."
 
— Societas
"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."

—Fernand Braudel, author of The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II

“It isn't just history or economics or sociology or political science. It is all of these in combination and thus places all of these fields on a new plane of understanding, It is a book that people will have to deal with, argue with, cite, learn by in order to make their own points....In sum, this is a most impressive work. I can hardly wait for the other volumes."

—Eric R. Wolf, author of Europe and the People without History