Andre Gunder Frank and Barry K. Gills, eds. THE WORLD SYSTEM:
FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OR FIVE THOUSAND? London and New York:
Routledge, 1993. xxii + 320 pp. ISBN 0-415-7678-1, $65.00
(hardcover).
Reviewed by
Thomas D. Hall, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, DePauw
University, Greencastle, Indiana, USA
THE WORLD SYSTEM: FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OR FIVE 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 Wallerstein's
analysis of the modern world-system, they strongly reject his
claim for its novelty. Rather, they argue that many of the
processes Wallerstein posits as unique to the modern world-system
when the state were invented in Mesopotamia some five thousand
years ago. They argue that the emphasis on the uniqueness of the
modern world-system reproduces an unintended and unfortunate
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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
assertion that there has been one continuous world system is not a
reversion to a theory of unilineal, 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 reasoning and unilineal theorizing, and
explicitly reject both, they always seem in imminent danger of
going over the brink.
Second, Frank and Gills� position continues to be contested,
not only by Samir Amin and Immanuel Wallerstein, but by
Christopher Chase-Dunn and myself and others. While Amin and
Wallerstein 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
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starting with a major evolutionary problem already solved: the
origin of states. We 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-
system continues, the level of disagreement should not be
overstated. The differences are 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 essay--a masterful tour and plea 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
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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 Chase-
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 are rooted in class struggles between elites and non-elites
and among elites (p. 130).
Part three analyzes world history, begining 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
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that of Gills and Frank. In it he explains his concepts of central
civilization, oikumenes, 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 Wallerstein 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
Afroeurasia. Debates of the uniqueness of Europe not withstanding,
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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, are: (1) 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 are 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. McNeill, 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
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all, of the previously published essays will benefit from a new
reading of the entire collection. Overall, THE WORLD SYSTEM: FIVE
HUNDRED YEARS OR FIVE THOUSAND? belongs in every library that
claims coverage of world history or international or relations. It
is a "must read" for anyone seriously interested in the debates
about precapitalist world-systems.
