Journal of World-Systems Research Volume l ,Book Review # 1, 1995 http ://jwsr.ucr.edu/ ISSN 1076-156X Review of: W. Warren Wagar. A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. xi+ 324 pp. ISBN 0-226- 86902-4, $14.95 (paper). Reviewed by Terry Boswell, Department of Sociology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Copyright ( c) Terry Boswell v.10/4/95 Utopian visions of possible new world orders proliferate every 50 to 60 years with the long stagnation of the Kondraetieff economic cycle, according to the research of Edgar Kiser and Kriss A. Dra~s ("Changes in the Core of the World-System and the Production of Utopian Literature in Great Britain and the United Staet~, 1883-1975," AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, 1987). They found that the publication of utopian novels a~ a percentage of all novels published clusters in the downturn pha~e of the Kondraetieffwave, peaking during the period when economic conditions turn for the better after a long crisis. Hegemonic decline amplifies the cultural response to the economy. Kiser and Dra~s use the publication of utopian novels a~ something of a [Page 2] temperature gauge of the prevailing cultural weather. The relationship between ideological and economic conditions is turbulent at best. But over the long term, the cultural atmosphere surrounding economic conditions shifts with the sea~onal pattern of economic stagnation and expansion, and hegemonic stability and decline. One such novel of particular importance for conceiving the future of the world- system is W. Warren Wagar's A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE. Wagar, a historian at SUNY Binghamton and colleague of Immanuel Wallerstein, ha~ written a utopian vision from a deliberately world-systemic point of view. As a novel, it reads rather like a historian's extrapolation ba~ed on an explicit theory. It is full of long treatises on changing world conditions, with only occa~ional epistolary interludes to add 469 Journal of World-Systems Research human characters to what is otherwise all plot. While it lacks the literary quality of the H. G. Wells it attempts to emulate, it is nevertheless readable and enjoyable simply a~ the written imagination of a learned and intelligent author. Viewing a [Page 3] utopian novel simply a~ a novel misses the whole point. Utopian novels pose new answers to the ideological question of "what is possible9" (Kiser and Dra~s). Along with answers to "what cxists9" and "what is good9," conceiving "what is possible9" forms the ba~is for any world view. Goran Thcrborn's cla~sic work on ideology (THE POWER OF IDEOLOGY AND THE IDEOLOGY OF POWER, 1980) explains that defining "what is possible" is the la~t defense of the status quo. While one may empirically demonstrate that exploitation exists and even that it is unfair, for instance, one cannot prove empirically that a better alternative is possible when that system docs not yet exist. Conceiving "what is possible" is an act of extrapolation from what exist~. When the world economy ha~ unmistakcnly failed to grow at appca~ing rates for nearly a generation, people become convinced that the existing forms of organization must be discarded and experiment with new ones to put in their place. Utopian visions, at that time, have a new resonance. They take advantage of the pliable economic conditions to stretch our conception of the possible. [Page 4] Wagar's novel comes at what is, hopefully, the tail of a long stagnation, and at the middle of America's descent from hegemony. A~ a utopian vision of possible futures, a vision ba~cd on world- systcm theory, Wagar offers scenarios that begin to offer what we must have in order for the theory to offer more than analysis of what exists. Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1990, socialist visions of the future appear to many to be trapped by futility. Despite the long-ago recognition by most Western leftists that the Soviet model wa~ undemocratic and oppressive, its utter collapse brought a surprising recognition that the entire system had long been unrcfonnable. Democratization by Gorbachcvs or Trotskys or other would-be true democratic socialists could not reverse the failings of the command economy (Terry Boswell and Ralph Peters, "State Socialism and the Industrial Divide in the World-Economy: A Comparative Essay on the Rebellions in Poland and China," CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY, 1990). This recognition is what leaves Marxists in a crisis of purpose, not the trumpeting of Soviet oppression or even of its failures, which were recognizable from [Page 5] applying Marxist theory. This is not to say that Wagar offers a viable alternative model or that his vision is even a prediction of what will happen ( the first edition still even had a Soviet Union). The purpose of a utopian novel is not to predict the future but to offer what Wagar calls an "array of possibilities" (p. x). His particular array is not highly probable as an extrapolation. But it docs offer a vision of a world socialism that is not constrained by the now suddcnly- obvious impossibilities of extending a "reformed" Soviet model. Wagar's vision is feasible within known parameters of the world- systcm and while an unlikely event to occur by accident, something like it could be made to happen by concerted action. It thus extends the possibility that concerted action would be worthwhile. Wagar actually offers two utopias and one dystopia. Each follows from and requires the previous one to create the conditions for its subsumption. The novel is organized into three "books": "Earth Inc.," "Red Earth," and "House of Earth," which chronicle the history of the world form 1995 to 2100. Wagar (p. [Page 6] xiii) modeled his three "books" on the Christian eschatology of "Armageddon, Millennium, and New Jerusalem." The dystopia must come first. It is an extrapolation from existing transnational corporate capitalism to include a corporate world polity, the OTC (Global Trade Consortium). The OTC functions as world hcgcmon, enforcing a corporate world order through economic boycott rather than military dominance. Initially the OTC is an enlightened despot, maintaining world peace and ushering in a renewed global prosperity at the small price of undemocratic rule, uniform cultural commodification, growing inequality, environmental degradation, and individual subservience. But global capitalist expansion leads inevitably to overproduction and recession. Wagar plays out the next century with dates from the one now ending. Global recession in 2032 lasts until world war breaks out in the 2040s. But in this scenario, the world war is a nuclear holocaust. From the ashes of the war, the states in the Southern Hemisphere (which arc now the core) coalesce to form a new world 471 Journal of World-Systems Research [Page 7] polity ba~cd on the principles of the World Party. The World Party is the most interesting and perhaps most important part of the book, which we will return to shortly. This new world state seems to be a democratic version of the GTC, which a~ a global democracy is driven to redress the problems of inequality and environmental degradation while also managing to restore peace and prosperity. It succeeds a bit too ca~ily, but Wagar docs remind us that even in a democratic socialist utopia, resistance will occur against the tyranny of the majority. This resistance takes the form of the Small Party, an anarchist congregation seeking individual and cultural autonomy through community self- sufficicncy. In the final and most entertaining "book," a victorious Small Party simply dissolves the world government. The final utopia is a world of self-governing communities small enough to practice direct democracy and enabled by fanta~tic technology to be both self-sufficient and fully prosperous. Any hierarchy is rejected, or falls away, and the material determination of the [Page 8] spirit is finally reversed. The World Party While the particular scenarios that Wagar presents arc built upon an incrca~ing number of "what ifa," the World Party is ba~cd on a set of principles that arc applicable in a wide array of scenarios. Those principles deserve discussion, regardless of the merits of the scenarios. The Party principles, a~ I interpret them from various point~ in the text, arc a~ follows: I. A World Socialist Commonwealth, including a world state with a military monopoly and public ownership of the mcgacorporations. 2. Global Democracy with direct elections by department for all offices, global and local. 3. Legal and programmatic provision for equal opportunity, [Page 9] including a worldwide a~sault on racism and sexism: and state provision of ba~ic needs, including education, health care, child care, and retirement. 4. lncomcs ba~cd on need, with no more than a 3:1 ratio among individuals for those employed (half share for those unwilling to work) and no more than 2:1 across department~. 5. "Declaration of Human Sovereignty," in which the world state abolishes national sovereignty and eschews national or ethnic identities. 6. "Integral humanism," a philosophical order of public affairs ba~cd on rationality, including a secular state and official tolerance for individual bclicfa (i.e., no legal enforcement of religious, national, ethnic, or other traditions), and a disdain for commodity fetishism. 7. A global plan for ecological restoration, renewable sources of supply, and population control. 8. A critique of world capitalism a~ the source of world wars and a~ oppressive and illegal a~ a world order (although petty [Page I OJ bourgeois capital and markets can operate within departments). 9. A critique of Stalinist style state socialism a~ opprcssic and illegal, with guarantees for democracy and individual liberty. I 0. A vanguard party strategy for mundialization, including rcvolutio, elections, coops, and even conquest of laggards until all states join the world commonwealth. The World Party is modeled on the German Green Party, with a heavy dose of the original Second International and the added twist of being ba~cd on world-system rather than Marxist or Keynesian theory. lt carries a ''New Left" imprint of being socialist and democratic, anti-capitalist and anti-totalitarian, cla~s and individually ba~cd. As Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel W allcrstcin (" 1968: The Great Rehearsal," in Boswell, ed., REVOLUTION IN THE WORLD-SYSTEM, 1987) point out, since the world revolution of 1968, such ''New Left" conceptions have redefined progressive politics. [Page 11] There arc many points that deserve critique, rejection, or revision. W c can start with those offered by Wagar himself, by enunciating the principles of the Small Party. lt carries an imprint from the other major offapring of 1968 revolution, the ''New Age" conceptions that redefined identity and spirituality. To many, ''New Age" means hippie wannabes wearing crystals, 473 Journal of World-Systems Research sleeping under pyramids, and listening to whales sing. It is that, but it is also an umbrella term for a wide variety of lifestyle issues that share a concern for personal autonomy and self-awareness. The most prominent arc feminist (and ethnic) conceptions of identity, which, for instance, overlap but still contra~t with leftist definitions of feminism a~ equality in the workplace. Given the anarchistic and spiritual character of the Small Party, its principles arc deliberately vague. Perhaps only the following two principles arc necessary and shared: elimination of the state or other central authority above the community; and complete autonomy and self-reliance of small communities. Self- [Page 12] reliance is premised on utopian technology that provides for abundant prosperity with little effort. Wagar suggest~ that most such communities would be governed by town-hall-style direct democracy, although religious and other traditional orders may also proliferate. He a~sumcs that abundance would guarantee a general equality and eliminate any desire for hierarchy or conquest. A missing a~sumption, which we can add, is that the technology ha~ a diminishing return to scale, and perhaps even to hierarchy, which would make small egalitarian communities the optimal form. But this makes the technological form, and thus the Small Party option, even more fanta~tical, eviscerating the critique. Perhaps the ''New Age" critique of "scientific socialism" is better understood a~ an alternative set of goals rather than an alternative organizational form that must be premised on utopian technology. Let me below offer a series of contra~ts, interpreted from the text, with the Small Party goals listed first: spiritual vs. rational; early Marx vs. late Marx; spontaneous vs. planned; [Page 13] feminine vs. ma~culinc; identity vs. humanity; community vs. individual; individual vs. family; autonomy vs. centralized; self- sufficicnt vs. interdependent; negotiation vs. law; variety vs. standard; freedom vs. equality; relativist vs. universal; folk vs. cla~sical; play vs. work; and, anarchy vs. state. Not all goals contradict and instead arc only a different priority or cmpha~is. Nevertheless, the contra~t is often striking and many do contradict. Wagar offers a stage theory wherein rational scientific world socialism produces the abundance that enables a communal spiritual world. Working cla~s technocrats turn into communal hippies. A strength ofWagar's array of possibilities is that they take account of the slow movement of global time. He lets about 50 years pa~s, a full Kondracticff, before one world order slips into the next. Each set of social relations that characterize a period is predicated on the developments that preceded it -- the autonomous community utopia required the equality and prosperity of a world socialism, which in turn wa~ built on charred framework of a capitalist world [Page 14] polity. But arc these stages necessary? Wagar's stage conception j ustifics sacrificing spirituality, spontaneity, femininity, identity, and perhaps even freedom in the short run in order to achieve the same in the abundant future. I doubt that by sacrificing these goals one creates the conditions for their achievement, or even if it might, that many would risk the sacrifice. These arc not investments, where a sacrifice reaps a greater reward, but arc alternatives. Some may even be complimentary. Yet must we accept either the premise offanta~tic technology or that the achievement of goals must occur in stages? Is not a synthesis of goals, requiring only foreseeable technology, a possible option? I not only think the answer is yes, but also think that the world party and world socialism is only worthwhile if the answer is yes. What that synthesis can and should be cannot be answered here. Or what is the same thing, all or at lea~t most of the goals should be included. "How can 'New Left' and 'New Age' be reconciled or synthesized?" is the first of two questions that [Page 15] advocates of a world party and world socialism need to reach an agreed upon answer. The second is question is, "How do we begin?" Historically, attempts to organize international parties have succeeded only up to the point of exercising real power. Power is located in states, which have a societal constituency and a physical border that frequently contradicts global concerns. The nationalistic division of the Second International over World War I is the cla~sic example. Y ct, ironically, a~ the national interests in western Europe coalesced after World War II, the Second International revived a~ a common forum for designing and coordinating (moderately) progressive policies. Could such a forum exist at the world level? Certainly global organizations exist and have been 475 Journal of World-Systems Research proliferating at a phenomenal rate since World War 11. ln analyzing data on the establishment of International Non- Govcrnmcntal Organizations (lNGOs) since 1875, John Boli (1994) find~ a linear incrca~c interrupted only by war and depression, [Page 16] that after World War 11 incrca~cd geometrically (three times a~ many in 1990 a~ 1960). These organizations, along with other global actors and events, constitute and reflect the world polity ( despite the absence of a world state). Y ct international political parties and labor unions have not been among the organizations on the rise. Most have been industry and trade organizations, that is in cla~s terms, organizations of international capital rather than labor. Capital is laying the foundation for organizing labor globally, a~ it previously did industrially. lfthc foundation is there, then the question of how to begin becomes one of deciding where to start, what part of the foundation to build upon first. A utopian perspective is ill- cquippcd to dctcnninc what we should do; it offers only scenarios of what we could do. Wagar offers an alternative scenario to traditional party organizing. He ha~ the World Party evolving out of study groups, salons, and other nonhicrarchical interactions. The most important arc discussion networks on the Internet, not unlike the World-Systems Network with which most readers of this journal arc familiar. Journal of World-Systems Research Volume 1, Book Review #2, 1995 http ://jwsr.ucr.cdu/ ISSN 1076-156X Book reviewed: Robert Perrucci. JAPANESE AUTO TRANSPLANTS IN THE HEARTLAND: CORPORATISM AND COMMUNITY. New York: Aldinc de Gruytcr, 1994. xii+l86 pp. ISBN 0-202-30582-7, $37.95 (hardcover); ISBN 0-202- 30529-5, $18.95 (paper). Reviewed by Carl H. A. Da~sbach, Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan, USA Copyright (c) Carl Da~sbach 1995. v.10/4/95 Robert Pcrrucci's JAPANESE AUTO TRANSPLANTS IN THE HEARTLAND is not a study of transplant~ a~ factories. There is little or no discussion of work, management relations, or quality control inside Japanese automobile transplants, and anyone interested in these topics would be better served by books such a~ Kenny and Florida's BEYOND MASS PRODUCTION or Womack ct al.'s THE MACHINE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD. Perrucci, in other words, is not interested in transplants a~ 'things,' he is interested in transplants a~ 'process' and specifically in the factors and forces leading to their location in certain midwcstcrn communities in the United States. [Page 2] As the book correctly points out, this "transplant phenomenon" is the result of both global and national, or what could be called macro, and state and local, or micro, determinant~. Pcrrucci's discussion of the macro determinant~ is probably the weakest part of the book. Not only docs he overlook some important points, e.g., the role ofMITI or the effects of the VRA (the Voluntary Restraint Agreement between Japan and the U.S.) on aggressive Japanese companies, but he repeats much of what ha~ already been observed about transplant~. On the other hand, the originality and strength of this book lies in its analysis of the micro determinants. Previously, these received, at best, some scattered attention ( e.g., Green and Yanarclla, eds., THE POLITICS OF INDUSTRIAL RECRUITMENT, 1990). In this book, Perrucci systematically examines these by comparing informal and formal state and local policies and practices which led to the 477 Journal of World-Systems Research construction of Japanese auto transplants in several Midwest communities. Perrucci concludes that the important determinants at the micro level were the ability of an "activist" state and [Page 3] local governments, working in conjunction with local business elites, to provide incentives for, and construct a consensus around, the new plant, its people, and its economic benefits. He refers to this alliance between state, local governments and local elites for the purpose of attracting investment~ and stimulating the economy a~ "embedded corporatism" and argues that it is_ not_ a transitory phenomenon, arising solely to meet the demand~ of luring the transplants. Instead, "embedded corporatism" represents "a significant and historic change in the way political and economic life is organized" (p. 35). The clearest indicator of the growth of"cmbcddcd corporatism" over the la~t 20 years is the growth of interest among states, a~ evidenced by a doubling in the number of conventional programs and the creation of new programs, in promoting economic development. This, in turn, is a response by states to declining Federal and local revenues due to dcindustrialization and incrca~cd responsibility for the welfare of its citzcnry. In a the largest sense, Perrucci secs "embedded corporatism," of which the transplant phenomenon is only one [Page 4] instance, a~ part of a new "social structure of accumulation" consisting of regional economics and "ba~cd on close cooperation between private corporations and state government" (p. 35). In my opinion, this book is well worth reading; it addresses relevant points about both transplants and the future of the American political economy. Some may be dismayed by the middle chapters because they read like a community study in the vein of Vidich and Bcnsman's SMALL TOWN IN MASS SOCIETY. But the strength of this book, and its relevance to world-system concerns, is that it links these community level developments with broader trend~. This wa~, in fact, the espoused intention of the author: "our ca~c study approach will show how broad formulations of global change arc reflected in the day-to-day actions of politicians, business owners, labor officials, environmentalists and other community members .... " (p. 37), and it ha~ been achieved with an extremely high degree of success. Journal of World-Systems Research Volume 1, Book Review #3, 1995 http ://jwsr.ucr.edu/ ISSN 1076-156X Book reviewed: Andre Gunder Frank and Barry K. Gills, eds. THE WORLD SYSTEM: FNE illJNDRED YEARS OR FNE THOUSAND? London and New York: Routledge, 1993. xxii + 320 pp. ISBN 0-415-7678-1, $65.00 (hardcover). Reviewed by Thoma~ D. Hall, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, DePauw University, Greenca~tle, Indiana, USA Copyright (c) Thoma~ D. Hall 1995. v.10/4/95 THE WORLD SYSTEM: FNE HUNDRED YEARS OR FNE THOUSAND? is an extended debate among the editors, Immanuel Wallerstein, Samir Amin, and others about how new and how different the modern, capitalist world-system is from all previous world-systems. Although Andre Gunder Frank and Barry Gills accept W allerstein's analysis of the modern world-system, they strongly reject his claim for its novelty. Rather, they argue that many of the processes W allerstein posits a~ unique to the modern world-system when the state were invented in Mesopotamia some five thousand years ago. They argue that the empha~is on the uniqueness of the modern world-system reproduces an unintended and unfortunate [Page 2] Eurocentrism. They argue instead for a humanocentric world history. Two further issues lurk in the background in the debate about European uniqueness. First, Frank and Gills argue that the a~sertion that there ha~ been one continuous world system is not a reversion to a theory ofunilineal, inevitable progress. Rather, it is a recognition of a deep historical continuity filled with contingencies amenable to human action. While they seek to avoid slipping into teleological rea~oning and unilineal theorizing, and explicitly reject both, they always seem in imminent danger of going over the brink. Second, Frank and Gills's position continues to be contested, not only by Samir Amin and Immanuel Wallerstein, but by 479 Journal of World-Systems Research Christopher Chase-Dunn and myself and others. While Amin and Wallcrstcin argue that the appearance of the modern world-system was indeed something new under the sun, Chase-Dunn and I argue that its appearance was not the first such transformation. Gills and Frank side-step the issue of earlier transformations by [Page 3] starting with a major evolutionary problem already solved: the origin of states. W c argue that the appearance of states was also a world-systemic process, and that the study of such major transformations -- from kin-based, normative to tributary, and from tributary to capitalist world-systems -- may offer insights into possible future transformations. This argument is largely ignored. To be fair, not much of it was in print at the time Frank and Gills edited their collection. While the debate over the uniqueness of the modern world- systcm continues, the level of disagreement should not be overstated. The differences arc often ones of perspective, interpretation, and nuance. Frank and Gills emphasize continuity; others emphasize transformation. The book is organized in four parts. Part one is the editors' opening cssay--a masterful tour and pica for examining world history from a world-systemic view. It rehearses all the familiar, and many new, arguments for approaching history and social change from a world-system perspective. The second part develops their [Page 4] theory, beginning with a now classic essay on ancient imperialism by Kajsa Ekholm and Jonathan Friedman, followed by the editors' own theory of accumulation (the latter first appeared in Chasc- Dunn and Hall, eds., CORE/PERIPHERY RELATIONS IN PRECAPITALIST WORLDS, 1991 ). This part concludes with a previously unpublished essay by Gills on hegemonic transitions. Gills provides a useful summary of conventional international relations theories and Gramscian theories of hegemony and compares both to their theory. He further claims that the cycles of hegemony and cycles of accumulation that characterize the five thousand year old world system arc rooted in class struggles between elites and non-elites and among elites (p. 130). Part three analyzes world history, bcgining with a breathtaking tour of hegemonic shifts from "1700 BC to 1700 AD." They follow this with an analysis of feudalism, capitalism, and socialism as ideological modes. Part four opens with a new essay by political scientist David Wilkinson. This essay is a readable introduction to Wilkinson's important work which closely parallels [Page 5] that of Gills and Frank. In it he explains his concepts of central civilization, oikumcncs, and civilizations. Next Samir Amin uses an analysis of tributary empires to makes a case for a sharp transformation to capitalism which draws on his EUROCENTRISM (1989). Janet Abu-Lughod summarizes and extends her analysis from BEFORE EUROPEAN HEGEMONY (1989) in a new essay, which observes both continuity and significant change in the appearance of modern capitalism. Immanuel Wallcrstcin presents a pungent four page critique of Frank and Gills' world system (no hyphen, singular) analysis, arguing for world-systems (hyphen, plural) analysis. This essay, in combination with the opening pages of the first essay draws the distinctions between the two approaches quite clearly. Gills and Frank exercise editorial prerogative and close with a rejoinder to their critics. A major insight in this collection is that the rise of Europe, and indeed the occurrence of feudalism, can only be explained by recourse to systemic connections to the rest of Afrocurasia. Debates of the uniqueness of Europe not withstanding, [Page 6] Frank and Gills agree with Amin that European feudalism originates in systemic processes, that it is a peripheral form of the tributary state. The major weaknesses, in my view, arc: (I) lack of clear connection to and implication for future transformations, other than the claim that the struggle continues; (2) insufficient attention to demographic processes, especially epidemics transmitted along trade routes; and (3) only limited explanation of what drive the cycles of hegemony and accumulation that characterize this five thousand year old world system. Even the role of class struggles is not fully explicated. At least the questions arc raised in a provocative way. This book bears the burden of any collection of previously published essays: it is redundant in places and disjointed in others. However, a Foreword by William H. McNcill, the Preface by the editors, addenda to a few essays, and parenthetical remarks noting links among the essays increase its overall coherence and minimize these minor faults. Even those who have read one, or even all, of the previously published essays will benefit from a new reading of the entire collection. Overall, THE WORLD SYSTEM: FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OR FNE THOUSAND? belongs in every library that 481 Journal of World-Systems Research claims coverage of world history or international or relations. It is a "must read" for anyone seriously interested in the debates about prccapitalist world-systems. Journal of World-Systems Research Volume l,Book Review #4, 1995 http://jwsr.ucr.edu/ ISSN 1076-156X Book reviewed: Guillermo Algaze. THE URUK WORLD SYSTEM: THE DYNAMICS OF EXPANSION OF EARLY MESOPOTAMIAN CIVILIZATION. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. xii+ 162 pp. ISBN 0-226-01381-2, $39.95 (hardcover). Reviewed by Alexander H. Joffe, Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA Copyright (c) Alexander H. Joffe 1995. v.10/4/95 Republished from JOURNAL OF FIELD ARCHAEOLOGY 21: 512-516, 1994, with the permission of the Trustees of Boston University. Copyright 1994, JOURNAL OF FIELD ARCHAEOLOGY. One of the many ironies of studying complex societies in Western Asia is that so much new information ha~ been acquired a~ a result of modern processes which obliterate the pa~t more forcefully than anything the world ha~ ever seen. Like the hydraulic works which brought plenty then despair to Mesopotamia over the ages, the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates and their tributaries in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq bring short-term economic [Page 2] gain but threaten long-term ecological and archaeological disa~ter. The quarter century archaeological bonanza of surveys and salvage excavations is bittersweet indeed. A second irony is that the Uruk period of Southern Mesopotamia is in some respects better known in the peripheries than in the "heartland of cities." In the south, Warka remains the primary reference point, but elsewhere dozens ofUruk sites have been surveyed and an increa~ing number excavated, creating a rich databa~e and an intriguing series of questions. It is this outer world of the Uruk that Guillermo Algaze addresses in his excellent book on The Uruk World System. Ba~ed on a 1986 dissertation at the University of Chicago, the book expands and refines the arguments presented in a 1989 article in CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY (Algaze, "The UrukExpansion: 483 Journal of World-Systems Research Cross-cultural Exchange in Early Mesopotamian Civilization"). Algazc articulates a concise scenario to explain the presence of Uruk sites in Syria, Iran and Anatolia. He suggests that Uruk interest in these area~ wa~ driven by the need to procure critical [Page 3] resources not present in the southern alluvium. To do this Uruk societies created a series of settlements in the peripheries to develop exchange relations with highland area~ where resources and preexisting trade networks, most notably for timber, stone, and metals, were located. The a~ymmctrical nature of these relations, between representatives of the highly organized Uruk politics and the lower-order indigenous Chaleolithic societies, created a situation of dependency. Only limited sectors of the highland economics were developed and local elites became reliant on trade relations on the Mesopotamian "market" for continual reinforcement of their roles and statuses. In turn, the Uruk lowland exported a narrow range of finished good~, such a~ textiles, to the north, strengthening central control oflabor-intcnsivc industries at home and undermining economic diversification in the periphery. The overall result wa~ an "informal empire", where domination wa~ essentially economic rather than political or territorial. But the catalytic effect of this intrusion on Late Chalcolithic societies also ha~tcncd their [Page 4] demise, a~ incrca~ingly sophisticated northern elites began exercising greater control over exchange, interrupting critical flows ofrcsourccs to the south and helping cause the collapse of the Late Uruk period. This pcrsua~ivc scenario explicitly employs clements of several cla~sic theories; dependency theory, world systems approaches, and revisionist theories of imperialism. It is also ba~cd on a view of southern Mesopotamia a~ resource-poor. The bulk of the book is taken up with a systematic discussion of the Uruk, Uruk-relatcd, and indigenous Late Chalcolithic sites in the peripheries and their functions. This makes for highly informative reading, a~ Algazc collates all the available evidence, primarily from surveys. The number of sites with Uruk material is considerable, but distinguishing an "Uruk" site from a "local" site on the ba~is of surface collections is problematic. Sites with Uruk material arc categorized a~ urban-sized "enclaves,? such a~ Habuba Kabira, Tell Brak, and possibly Nineveh, with their surrounding cluster sites, and smaller "outposts" and "stations" further in the periphery, such a~ Godin [Page 5] Tepe, Tepe Sialk, and Ha~sck Hu yuk. Again, de termination of site function on the ba~is of surface remains is a difficult issue. Algazc pcrsua~ively notes, however, that the distribution of sites is such that an economic rationale is visible. The enclaves arc clearly located on strategic trade routes along the Euphrates, Upper Khabour, and Upper Tigris, while smaller stations appear to secure connecting routes. Other stations arc located in the vicinity of highland production centers, such a~ the Anatolian copper working site ofTcpccik. The materialist orientation of the argument is clear, with little mention of the political and the religious. The economic focus is in keeping with the thrust of world systems and dependency approaches which must rely on straight-forward coercions and benefits to explain how people were motivated to participate in this trading system. This is very much against the trend of other recent studies of intcrsocictal interaction, most notably the work of Mary Helms (ULYSSES' SAIL, 1988; "Long- distancc Contacts, Elite Aspirations, and the Age of Discovery in [Page 6] Cosmological Context," in Shortman and Urban, eds., RESOURCES, POWER, AND INTERREGIONAL INTERACTION, 1992), which stress ideological factors a~ motivation for elite demands and for public acquiescence and participation. In the Old World ideological approaches have been employed in analyses of exchange in Early Cycladic and early Egypto-Lcvantinc contexts (Cyprian Broodbank, "Ulysses without Sails: Trade, Distance, Knowledge and Power in the Early Cyclades," WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY, 1993; Alexander H. Joffe, SETTLEMENT AND SOCIETY IN THE EARLY BRONZE I AND II OF THE SOUTHERN LEVANT, 1993), while in the New World they have been the source of much controversy (Geoffrey W. Conrad and Arthur A. Demarest, RELIGION AND EMPIRE, 1988). There is of course no "right" way to look at intcrsocictal interaction, but an ideological perspective on the Uruk expansion may help resolve certain questions of intent, function, scale and timing. The book is on weakest grounds when discussing the goods being exchanged. The argument is largely from silence with regard to the raw or finished bulk goods presumably traded in either [Page 7] direction, such a~ timber, textiles, dried fish, prisoners, or any 485 Journal of World-Systems Research of the other commodities attested in later documentary evidence. What is actually found in the Mesopotamian core arc a variety of metals and exotic stones, while in the peripheries outside the colonies there arc Uruk ceramics and seals. The nature of the actual finds cuts directly to the heart of the world systems approach. Algazc dismisses Wallcrstcin's dichotomy between "preciosities" and bulk staples, but in his insistence to invoke dependency theory he must posit large -scale production activities which strengthen elites in the peripheries and lead to underdevelopment. Similarly, to make the Uruk expansion the forerunner of later, more direct forms of domination, the "informal empire" must exert a level of economic control attainable only through large-scale and a~ymmctrical exchange. Finally, lowland-highland relations had to be sufficiently profound that their interruption by independent-minded elites in the peripheries would have helped precipitate the collapse of the Late Uruk society in the alluvium and propelled the highlands [Page 8] towards greater complexity. At the root of much of this lies the notion of a "resource-starved" Mesopotamian alluvium, whose socioeconomic hunger for interregional exchange is a central tenant of North American theories on the 9origins of the statc.9 Three factors have tended to constrain our view of intcrsocictal interaction and early complexity in Western A~ia and elsewhere (sec also the discussion in Edward M. Schortman and Paticia A. Urban, "The Place of Interaction Studies in Archaeological Thought," in Shortman and Urban, eds., RESOURCES, POWER, AND INTERREGIONAL INTERACTION, 1992). First is the explicit cmpha~is on specialized production in North American managcrially- oricntcd, nco-cvolutionary analyses of state formation. Second arc the slightly tyrannical analogies of Akkadian imperialism, where we have tended to rather simplistically accept Sargonic accounts (Piotr Michalowski, "Memory and Deed: The Historiography of the Political Expansion of the Akkad State," in Liverani, ed., AKKAD - THE FIRST WORLD EMPIRE, 1993), and Old A~syrian trade, where documentary evidence alone reveals an archaeologically invisible [Page 9] relationship of otherwise unimagined proportions. These arc combined with the textbook mantra of Mesopotamia lacking natural resources, a view that is perhaps more a colonialist lament rather than an objective a~scssmcnt. The result ha~ been an anthropological paradigm on the origins of the state lying in the ability of institutions to process information and administer production, rationally taking advantage of its ability to produce tremendous agricultural surpluses but at the same time desperately needing interaction with its highland neighbors. While it has been applied cross-culturally, most recently by Algazc ("Expansionary Dynamics of Some Early Pristine States," AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, 1993), the theory no longer seems especially robust (sec especially Philip L. Kohl, "State Formation," in Patterson and Gailey, eds., POWER RELATIONS AND STATE FORMATION, 1987; and Norman Yoffcc, "Too Many Chiefs? Or Safe Texts for the 90s," in Sherratt and Yoffcc, eds., ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORY - WHO SETS THE AGENDA?, 1993). Only a few aspects may be considered here. Was the alluvium so starved for resources? In his comment on [Page I OJ Algazc's earlier presentation, Harvey Weiss ("Comment on Guillermo Algazc, The UrukExpansion'," CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY, 1989) believes not, suggesting for example, that imported wood was not necessary for monumental architecture, that gypsum was extracted locally, and so on. Ironically, such a minimalist view on the need for lowland-highland interaction undermines W ciss's own theories regarding Akkadian imperialism in Northern Mesopotamia (H. Weiss, M.-A. Courty, W. Wcttcrstrom, F. Guichard, L. Senior, R. Meadow, and A Curnow, "The Genesis and Collapse of Third Millcnium North Mesopotamian Civilization," SCIENCE, 1993). Recent cthnoarchacology, for example, would suggest that local trees and reeds may have sufficed for all but the most monumental architecture in Southern Mesopotamia (Edward Ochscnschlagcr, "Ethnographic Evidence for Wood, Boats, Bitumen and Reeds in Southern Iraq," BULLETIN ON SUMERIAN AGRICULTURE, 1992; Jcan- Claudc Margucron, "Le Bois dans L'Architccturc: Premier Essai pour Unc Estimation des Bcsoins dans Le Bassin Mcsopotamicn," BULLETIN ON SUMERIAN AGRICULTURE, 1992). The debate over resources [Page 11] will not be resolved easily, but it useful to focus on what we actually have in the archaeological record, prestige goods, and to suggest factors which complement the materialist approach. Herc the work of Helms and others on ideological factors helps provide a more realistic set of assumptions on the basic rationale for interregional interaction, the securing of critical resources for elite symbolic use and the exercise of ideological power. The significance of prestige goods in interregional interaction was pointed out long ago by Robert M. Adams 487 Journal of World-Systems Research ("Anthropological Perspectives on Ancient Trade," CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY, 1974) and Jane Schneider ("Was there aPrc- Capitalist World-System?", PEASANT STUDIES, 1977). Furthermore, no one has been able to propose an entirely convincing explanation for how U ruk settlers got to the peripheries and how they were organized. Certainly the wholesale Uruk colonization of the Susiana plain is a very different phenomenon than the trading posts in Syro-Anatolia, for which Algazc proposes a "trade diaspora" model, following Philip Curtin. But issues of initial [Page 12] design and intent remain unclear. Were it the case that elites at least initially sought high-value, low-volume materials for purposes of symbolic display, then appeals to the religious sphere may have sufficed to motivate colonists. Exercising the ideological and administrative ability to dispatch groups of people to distant frontiers may itself have been a part of the rationale for the colonies. Once in the periphery the colonies may have been self-sustaining, dutifully replicating southern Mesopotamian practice amidst the natives, eventually growing into large settlement systems. The shallow duality of coercions and benefits may thus be escaped. Large numbers of people would not have been required to set up such a system, nor would continual migration been required to sustain it. At its zenith the colonial system may have contained maximally a scant few tens of thousands of "Urukians," but how many of them had ever seen the alluvium? Is the Uruk expansion then a series of events or part of a long-term trend? Algazc notes that Ubaid 3 and 4 contacts with Syro-Mcsopotamia foreshadowed Uruk movement into these regions, a [Page 13] point forcefully made by Joan Oates ("Trade and Power in the Fifth and Fourth Millcnium BC: New Evidence from Northern Mesopotamia," WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY, 1993). These antecedents, and particularly the evidence for Middle Uruk materials at sites such as Sheikh Hassan which predate the bulk of Late Uruk settlement appear to negate Johnson's suggestion that the Uruk expansion simply represents the movement of refugees fleeing the collapse of Late Uruk city-states in Sumer (Gregory A. Johnson, "Late Uruk in Greater Mesopotamia: Expansion or Collapse?", ORIGIN!, 1988-1989). While most of the peripheral Uruk sites thc1rnelvcs seems to be fairly short-lived, Oates also points to recently discovered Jcmdct Na~r materials at Tell Brak a~ evidence that the southern foray wa~ neither a~ brief nor its collapse a~ thorough a~ seemed only a few years ago. To be sure, there must have been significant changes within the Uruk period in relationships between city-states, colonies, and peripheries. Any discussion ofUruk chronology is sadly hampered by the crippling dearth of radiocarbon a~says. The high point of the colonial system appears to have coincided with the [Page 14] Eanna Archaic N horizon at Warka, at which point the demands of the proliferating institutions in the core would have been many and varied, and the sheer subsistence requirement~ of the colonies considerable. The scale of elite demands at this point may have been such that more wide-ranging exploitation appeared necessary. The Late Uruk may therefore represent the intensification or culmination of a trend that had its origins in the ideological but which at its peak unavoidably overflowed into the socio-economic. The Uruk expansion wa~ certainly part of a cyclical "momentum towards empire" but "societal responses to the chronic lack of resources in the Mesopotamian alluvium" is not an adequate behavioral explanation. While recognizing that there wa~ likely no ma~ter plan, and that competing Mesopotamian states probably dispatched their own colonies to the peripheries, there is little discussion of how these sites would have related with one another. Did colonies from different city-states compete or cooperate9 The overall tone of the book gives the impression that all the enclaves, outposts, and stations worked smoothly together. Perhaps [Page 15] that wa~ indeed the ca~e, but it would contradict the dominant conflict models for the Uruk period, which, it should be pointed out, derive largely from inferences on settlement patterns and fragments of iconography. Model~ of Phoenician or Greek colonization, and interaction between the two systems, could also be usefully explored to a greater extent. As Algaze notes in the book, and in his recent article ("Expansionary Dynamics ... ," 1993), there is a decided cross-cultural pattern of early complex societies maintaining settlements in the peripheries at the apex of their late prehistoric sequences. But this commonality may disguise important contra~ts. The Egyptian system in the Southern Levant wa~ originated by entrepreneurs and then taken over by emergent "royal" authority in Dyna~ty One ( a~ J. P. Dessel and I have argued in a still unpublished manuscript). The way the Uruk system wa~ run makes it seem unlikely to have been the monopoly of any one city-state, however. These sorts of contra~ts raise the inescapable, if tautological, question of the relationship between 489 Journal of World-Systems Research "trade" and the "state" (e.g., Malcolm Webb, "The Flag Follows [Page 16] Trade: An Essay on the Necessary Interaction of Military and Commercial Factors in State Formation," in Sabloff and Lambcrg- Karlovsky, eds., ANCIENT CNILIZATION AND TRADE, 1975). Finally, there is the impact of the Uruk expansion on local Late Chalcolithic societies. Stein ha~ suggested that Uruk- Anatolian relations may in fact have been highly symmetric, with distance acting a~ a leveling mechanism ( Gil Stein, "Power and Distance in the U ruk Mesopotamian Colonial System," paper presented at the meeting of the American Anthropological A~sociation, 1993). The fact remains, however, that another half- millennium pa~scd before city-states appear in Syro-Mcsopotamia. Another issue is whether Nincvitc 5 is to be characterized a~ a "chiefdom", essentially the la~t and biggest Chalcolithic entity, in a sense picking up where the Halaf left off, or whether it is, in fact, the first "urban" pha~c in northern Mesopotamia. The former view demands that the critical stimulus for urbanism come not from the Uruk expansion but from the even more brief and archaeologically ephemeral Akkadian intrusion in the mid-3rd [Page 17] millennium. The latter view, albeit slightly absurdist, highlights the limited cross-cultural utility of terms such a~ "state" and "urban". Until researchers addressing small-scale societies develop their own concepts for understanding "urbanism" and the "state" in different area~, what might be called "urban relativism" ( a phra~c I owe to Norman Yoffcc ), and an appreciation of the dynamic range of variation in local responses to intcrsocictal interaction, the peripheries will continue to be dominated by the cores. In the final analysis, however, it should be stressed that all comments on the origins, structure and function of the Uruk expansion arc speculations ba~cd solely on spatial patterns, stylistic parallel~, and cthnohistorical analogies. These and other reconstructions could ca~ily be tested by a systematic and wide-ranging program of neutron activation or other source analyses of the type that Joan Oates and her colleagues have begun (Oates, "Trade and Power. .. ," 1993, p. 417). Until then Algazc's book provides the best guide we could have to the Uruk expansion [Page 18] and the most systematic explanation of the phenomenon. This book is unusual in Near Ea~tcrn archaeology for developing an explicit theoretical position that is close to the leading edge of anthropological thought. Fortunately, most branches of Near Ea~tcrn archaeology have begun to overcome their timidity and positivist prejudices, and despite its materialist perspective Algazc's book is an excellent example of where we should be going. The judicious use of a world systems perspective, and the ingenious, if problematic, fusion with theories of dependency and imperialism, arc exactly the sorts of studies that archaeologists and historical sociologists should be doing, without devolving to the global caricature of the "5000 year world system" (e.g., Andre Gunder Frank, "The Bronze Age World System and Its Cycles," CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY, 1993). The criticisms raised here do not detract from Algazc's achievement in presenting a well-documented, coherent, and testable scenario. On a broader level Algazc's book is an important contribution towards understanding the dynamics of early complex societies. 491 Journal of World-Systems Research Journal of World-Systems Rcscarch,Volumc 1, Book Review #5, 1995 http ://ucr.jwsr.cdu/ ISSN 1076-156X Book reviewed: Gary Gcrcffi and Miguel Korzcnicwicz, eds. COMMODITY CHAINS AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM. Westport, Connecticut: Pracgcr, 1994. xiv+ 334 pp. ISBN 0-313-28914-X, $59.95 (hardcover); ISBN 0-275-94573-1, $22.95 (paper). Reviewed by Wilma A. Dunaway and Donald A. Clelland Department of Sociology University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA Copyright (c) Wilma Dunaway and Donald A. Clelland 1995. v.10/4/95 Despite early recognition of its theoretical centrality (Immanuel Wallcrstcin, HISTORICAL CAPITALISM, 1983, pp. 13-16), the "commodity chain" ha~ been inadequately conceptualized by world-system researchers. This book aims to correct that deficiency by aggregating papers that were presented at the 1992 annual conference of the Political Economy of the World-System Section of the American Sociological A~sociation. The book is organized around four themes: commodity chains in the capitalist world-economy prior to 1800; the economic restructuring of commodity chains; the geographic [Page l] Journal of World-Systems Research organization of commodity chains; and the shaping role of core consumption upon shifts in peripheral production and distribution. Each of the articles is rich in empirical details that reflect lengthy and involved research on the part of the writers; the book, a~ a whole, provides the ba~is for comparing trends in several different countries and industries. That dense detail is condensed through the use of21 tables and 34 commodity chain diagrams and maps. When we used this book in a Fall, 1994 graduate seminar, we quickly became aware that the book's preoccupation with the presentation of that empirical detail is also it~ primary weakness. Most of the articles focus upon documenting the various nodes and linkages that comprise the production and/or distribution processes involved in several different international industries. The 493 Journal of World-Systems Research editors declare that COJIAMODITY CHAINS fleshes out, for the first time, the "global commodity chains approach." Theoretically, this volume never achieves that goal. Indeed, we arc disappointed to find so little world-system theory in a volume derived from a PEWS Conference. In addition to seven pages by Hopkins and Wallcrstcin, the index [Page 2] Journal of World-Systems Research enumerates only seven brief references to "world-system theory," out of31 l pages of substantive content! For our graduate seminar, we repeatedly were forced to demonstrate how the a~signcd readings contributed to world-system theory, for most of the writers get caught up in a descriptive style or fail to link their explanations with world-system theory. Even more fundamentally, we arc troubled by the absence of a key world-systems notion. Hidden, only once (p. 49), Hopkins and Wallcrstcin introduce what they consider to be the pivotal question that should be addressed in commodity chain analysis: "If one thinks of the entire chain a~ having a total amount of surplus value that ha~ been appropriated, what is the division of this surplus value among the boxes of the chain9" Surprisingly, this central idea is ignored by the other contributors. None of the articles in this volume directly analyzes the extraction of surplus between the nodes of the chains orthe exploitation oflabor that occurs in the many processes. Instead, the editors contend that the global commodity chains approach "promotes a nuanced [Page 3] Journal of World-Systems Research analysis ofworld-economic spatial inequalities in terms of differential access to markets and resources" (p.2). Without adequate linkage to broader world-system arguments, that line of rea~oning sounds more like a disquieting apparition from the work ofRostow than a conceptual extension of world-system theory. What never appears in this book is the key 495 Journal of World-Systems Research idea that lies at the heart of understanding the international division oflabor: unequal exchange. There is little or no attention to the central world-system thesis that exploitation and domination arc structured at multiple level~ of the commodity chains that arc so painstakingly depicted. COMMODITY CHAINS makes a needed beginning; but its proposed framework will not be soundly grounded in world-system~ theory until it factors in the messy inequities that really result from the neat boxes and lines in the commodity chain diagrams. We will lose sight of the research agenda for social change that Wallcrstcin (REVIEW, I (i-2), 1977) originally proposed for world-system analysis ifwc get caught up in an approach that "explains the distribution of wealth ... a~ an outcome of the relative intensity of competition [Page 4] Journal of World-Systems Research within different nodes" (p. 4). Mainstream economists embrace exactly that kind of "free-market" language to account for the polarization between the First and Third Worlds. The "ghosts of theories pa~t" linger in the verbiage of too many of these articles; and the commodity networks arc described with a mechanical coldness that ignores the human exploitation that propels capitalism. Even though Wallcrstcin (WORLD INEQUALITY, 1975, pp. 9-29) declared it dead twenty years ago, dcvelopmcntalism leaps off the pages of this book more often than world-system theory. We do not entirely direct that criticism toward the editors, for the shortcomings of this book derive from a fundamental flaw in the annual PEWS Conferences. Most of the papers presented at those meetings arc athcorctical descriptions of the international arena; moreover, too many of the participant~ make no pretense of grounding their research within the world-system framework. If this trend continues, these annual volumes will accumulate a body of literature barely distinguishable a~ world-system analysis. Because there ha~ been inadequate 497 Journal of World-Systems Research [Page 5] Journal of World-Systems Research attention to theoretical debates, these conference proceedings have degenerated into hodgepodges of disjointed viewpoints. That strategy docs not build an accumulated body of research and knowledge that we should be labelling world-system analysis. It is too late to correct the flaws in COMMODITY CHAINS. However, we would urge a proactive strategy on the part of future editors of the PEWS collections. Ifthc contributed chapters arc athcorctical, they should be revised so that their world-system explanations arc clearly drawn -- even when that requires summarizing more briefly the descriptive details. When the contributor offers an antagonistic viewpoint (and we arc convinced that the writers arc often unaware they arc leaning those directions), other alternatives should be considered. First, the editor should contemplate omitting such an article from a volume that purports to represent the state of the world-system field. Or, the editor might incorporate such a piece by having the writer specify directly his or her debate with world-system explanations. Korzeniewicz, Gereffi, and Korzeniewicz reply 499 Journal of World-Systems Research Journal of World-Systems Research: Volume 1, Book Review #6, 1995 http://jwsr.ucr.edu/ ISSN 1076-156X Review, Giovanni Arrighi, _ The Long Twentieth Century_ (Verso, 1994) by Immanuel W allerstcin Copyright (c) 1995 by Immanuel Wallcrstcin v.10/4/95 Despite its title, this book is not really about the twentieth century, long or otherwise. It is an attempt to understand the de- cline of U.S. hegemony and the present dilemma~ of the world-system in the light of the historical evolution of world capitalism begin- ning with V cnicc and Genoa. It is a historicizcd political economy of the world-system, a major contribution to our understanding of our world. It is ambitious theoretically, since Arrighi is trying to put together a whole series of familiar stories and theoretical propositions in a provocative and original way. It will be dis- cussed and debated and used widely. Arrighi secs a constant tension between the "revenue-maximiz- ing logic of trade expansions" and the "profit-maximizing logic of capital accumulation" (p. 232) which alternately coincide with and [Page l] reinforce each other and bifurcate. Lest this seem abstruse, Arrighi immediately translates this into a concrete interpretation of600 years of world history. He builds his story on the idea of successive, alternating forms of hegemony within the world-system, what he call~ the dialectic of state and capital. He takes off from a boutadc of Braudel: "[In] V cnicc the state wa~ all; in Genoa capital wa~ all" (p. 145). In V cnicc the strength of capital rested on the coercive power of the state; in Genoa, capital stood on its own two feet, and the state, such a~ it wa~, wa~ dependent upon it. Arrighi's summary judgment: In the short run (in which a century is a short run), Venice's method seemed unbeat- able, but in the long run it wa~ Genoa that created the "first world-embracing cycle of capital accumulation" (p. 147). Then, in one of those clever antinomics of which he is fond, Arrighi says: "Just a~ Venice's inherent strength in state- and war-making wa~ its weakness, so Genoa's weakness in these same activities wa~ its strength" (p. 148). Venice became the prototype of "state (monopo- ly) capitalism" and Genoa of "cosmopolitan (finance) capitalism." So far, most readers will nod hazily in their fuzziness about the details of the fifteenth-century world. lt is when Arrighi starts applying these categories closer to home that the surprises come. It turns out the "Dutch regime, like the Venetian, wa~ rooted from the start in fundamental self-reliance and competitiveness in the use and control of force" (p. 151), which explains its hegemony and which then "backfircd ... [by creating] a new enticement for tcr- ritorialist organizations to imitate and compete with the Dutch ... " (p. 158). Once again, success would mean failure, Arrighi's repeated leitmotiv. [Page 2] Journal of World-Systems Research The British replaced the Dutch, and the Age of the Gcnocsc wa~ paralleled by the Age of the Rothschilds. They did this by reviving "the organizational structures of Iberian imperialism and Gcnocsc cosmopolitan finance capital, both of which the Dutch had supersed- ed" (p. 177). "Control over the world market wa~ the specificity of British capitalism" (p. 287). The Germans tried to suspend the ex- cessive competition this brought about, but the U.S. "superseded" it (p.285). U.S. corporate capitalism, expanding transnationally became "so many Trojan horses' in the domestic markets of other countries" (p. 294). This destroyed the structures of accumulation of British market capitalism but once done, "U.S. capitalism wa~ powerless to create the conditions of its own self-expansion in a cha- otic world" (p. 295). The impa~sc wa~ overcome only by inventing the cold war. ln the light of this history, the financial expansion of the 1970s and 1980s docs not seem revolutionary but a repeat of an old story. The overall picture is of four successive hegemonies: Gcnocsc, Dutch, British, and U.S., about which three major statements can be made: they successively were briefer: there wa~ a long-term tendency for the leading agencies to be successively larger and more complex; there wa~ a double movement, backward and forward in time, with each shift of hegemony (Venice/United Provinccs/U.S. [Page 3] contra~tcd with Genoa/United Kingdom). What can we say about such a va~t canva~, most inadequately summarized hcrc9 Its greatest strength is its clear vision of capi- 501 Journal of World-Systems Research talism as a single-mindedly rational attempt to accumulate capital endlessly, which means, says Arrighi, capitalists arc interested in the expansion of production only if it's profitable, which is true only about half the time. The rest of the time, the capitalists ex- pand their money stocks by playing financial games. They can inter- nalize or externalize their protection costs (Frederic Lane's very fruitful concept) and there arc pluses and minuses in each path. But it's not a matter of capricious option. The structure forces capitalists to alternate in a sort of ratchet fashion: one step backward, two steps forward. Arrighi's intellectual indebtedness to Marx and Schumpctcr arc well-known. What he has done is this book is take Braudcl seriously as a source of data and hypotheses and cast him in a Marxo -Schum- pctcrian mold. The work is truly a political economy, one in which successes breed failures, where "the real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself" (Marx), but ( or is it and?) capital ism is the "anti-market" (Braudcl). This book will not make everyone happy. There is no discussion of class, but then there is none in Marx's Capital. Perhaps more surprisingly, in a work written by Arrighi, there is scarcely a hint about the core-periphery antinomy in the organization of the world-economy. What Arrighi is concentrating upon is the organiza- [Page 4] Journal of World-Systems Research tion of the cycles of accumulation as the key to the story of the historical development of the world-system. And finally, for a political economy, which in theory emphasizes the role of political factors in the process of accumulation, there is little real poli- tics in the book. Words like left and right do not appear, and ide- ology is never mentioned. The current very central concerns of rac- ism/sexism or culture do not appear in the index. Nonetheless, this is an important and exciting work, which challenges most people's approach to the understanding of the world-system. lt is argued intensively, if a bit kaleidoscopically. lt forces the reader to reflect, if only to locate the potential inconsistencies in the fast-moving narrative. lt is not bedside reading. lt is a serious book for serious people in serious times. 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