Hall, Thomas D. ed. A World-Systems Reader: New Perspectives on Gender, Urbanism, Cultures, Indigenous Peoples, and Ecology.

• Author: Smith, R. Michael
• Position: Book Review

Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000. 352 pages. Paper, $24.95.

In this dense volume, Thomas Hall aims to achieve several purposes. He intends this to serve as an introductory reader in world-systems analysis. He sought to include articles by authors working in a variety of disciplines, including archeology, geography, linguistics, and political science, as well as sociology. And he wanted a variety of topics to be addressed as well as various areas of the world to be represented.

The first two chapters of the book are introductory, to the volume and to the subject. These chapters are particularly good, providing a coherent, rigorous introduction to the theory and surveying, with ample bibliography, the breadth of world-systems research.

Succeeding sections of the book demonstrate the disciplinary reach of world-systems analysis, its potential application to various topics, and its relation to other theoretical approaches. I found these chapters more mixed.

The explanation of postmodernism as a function of hegemonic decline is delightful, although the assumption of U.S. decline may be premature. The analysis of global war is intriguing, as is the account of the development of modern East Asia. Other chapters provide solid, detailed analysis of more "peripheral" topics.

Not all the authors included here interpret...