Immanuel Wallerstein is Senior Research Scholar at Yale University and the former President of the International Sociological Association. He is the author of many books, including, most recently, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction and European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power.

"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."

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsQuotation CreditsPrologue to the 2011 EditionIntroduction: On the study of social change1. Medieval prelude2. The new European division of labor: c. 1450–16403. The absolute monarchy and statism4. From Seville to Amsterdam: the failure of empire5. The strong core-states: class-formation and internationalcommerce6. The European world-economy: periphery versus external arena7. Theoretical repriseBibliographyIndex

Immanuel Wallerstein is Senior Research Scholar at Yale University and the former President of the International Sociological Association. He is the author of many books, including, most recently, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction and European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power.

"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."

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsQuotation CreditsPrologue to the 2011 EditionIntroduction: On the study of social change1. Medieval prelude2. The new European division of labor: c. 1450–16403. The absolute monarchy and statism4. From Seville to Amsterdam: the failure of empire5. The strong core-states: class-formation and internationalcommerce6. The European world-economy: periphery versus external arena7. Theoretical repriseBibliographyIndex