Wallerstein, Immanuel. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction.

• Author: Sommers, Jeff
• Position: Book Review

Wallerstein, Immanuel. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. xii + 109 pp. Cloth, $49.95; paper, $16.95.

Social scientists need little introduction to Immanuel Wallerstein. His world-systems analysis defined modern historical sociology and spawned debates lasting three decades over the best way to interpret history, society, and economy in global perspective. Indeed, at the time of its publication Andre Gunder Frank declared Wallerstein's The Modern World-System an "instant classic." This paradoxical mixing of the term "instant" with "classic" captured the essence of Wallerstein and the dependency theorists' approach to development in which it was possible to skip stages of economic development, just as a book could skip to become "instantly" a "classic." As it turns out, Frank was right and Wallerstein's work became just that--a classic--and world-systems theory became a model which more disciplinary-bound intellectuals would spend the next few decades trying to tear down.

World-systems theory laid down the gauntlet in the 1970s and challenged the humanities and social sciences to create a unified theory of economic, political, and social phenomena. Of course, Wallerstein's defiance was not always welcomed by more traditionally trained social scientists and historians who were socialized into an academic culture created in the nineteenth-century incubator of discipline-specific German graduate training programs. These scholars challenged Wallerstein's provocative approach just as often on psychological and ideological grounds as on analytical ones.

There were wrinkles, however, in the attempt by Wallerstein to easily explain his world-systems theory. First, to practice it one must gain command of several disciplinary analytical approaches. One must then be able to engage the topic of global development both horizontally (grasping the relationship between different places and actors in the world at the same time) and vertically (being able to compare them over time). Of course, for many historians and cultural theorists focusing on the particular and what makes cultures and states historically specific and unique, Wallerstein's approach served only to sound the alarm bells. How could anyone comprehend the workings of the entire capitalist world-system since 1500 when most scholars spent a career mastering the minutiae of one historical event or contemporary institution? Yet, world-systems...