Ó American Sociological Association 2012 DOI: 10.1177/0094306111430631 http://cs.sagepub.com

EDITOR’S REMARKS MORE HOT NEWS FROM THE PAST

When today’s harried middle class— known to be incorrect for centuries. Given especially those educated aspirants to van- that Brooks, with his University of Chicago ishing upper-middle-class status—wish to background, takes ideas seriously and tries remain au courant on the ‘‘big’’ ideas that to ‘‘keep up’’ with whatever seems new, one elude the confines of TV’s The Daily Show must wonder yet again if social science, as or The Office, they can turn twice a week to widely perceived outside its own home, has David Brooks in The New York Times for the accumulated any truly significant findings Burkean conservative line, or to his col- since Comte named sociology in 1839 and J. league, Paul Krugman, for the leftish politi- F. Herbart did the same for social psychology cal-economy that escaped notice in their circa 1830 (Jahoda 2007: 48-53). Or do we introductory economics course. Discussions instead simply recycle and recirculate ordi- of their sentiments, and those of a few other nary ideas attached to increasingly precise blue-ribbon columnists available (temporar- measurements, as Vico predicted we would ily?) for free via computer, have become the in 1725? It is easy to see technological lingua franca of serious-minded people, in change (‘‘real’’ progress is harder to measure) seminars as well as the grocery line. Our with each visit to the computer store, but the ‘‘public sphere,’’ the 18th century origins of same cannot be said for the millions of which Habermas investigated over 50 years words expended each year in social science ago, has probably benefitted from this ready research—something eagerly pointed out access to intelligent commentary, and it by the Right when research budgets are becomes ever harder therefore to ‘‘fool all evaluated. of the people all of the time.’’ Returning again to the archaeology of In a recent column, Brooks duly celebrated ideas, consider Joseph Addison (1672-1719) the experimental research of two psycholo- and Richard Steele (1672-1729), who three gists who inspired Richard Thaler and others hundred years ago (1709-1714) published to develop an economics that speaks to peo- The Tatler and then The Spectator while ple’s actual behavior in markets rather than not being soldiers (Captain in the Cold- to the fictional ‘‘rational actor’’ that underlies stream Guards), diplomats (under secretary most of the dismal science. Brooks writes, of state), opera composer (Rosamund), or ‘‘Before [Daniel] Kahneman and [Amos] a Member of Parliament! With help from Tversky [c. 1973], people who thought about a few friends, beginning on April 12, 1709 social problems and human behavior tended with Tatler No. 1, they created 193 issues, to assume that we are mostly rational agents. ending July 4, 1710, each issue containing They assumed that people have control over about 2,000 words. With hardly a breath, the most important parts of their own think- they began The Spectator on March 1, 1711, ing. They assumed that people are basically seeing its influence grow through 635 issues sensible utility-maximizers and that when until December 20, 2014. They were imitated they depart from reason it’s because some throughout the eighteenth century, studied passion like fear or love has distorted their through the nineteenth, and issued in judgment’’ (Brooks 2011). many editions, including a complete set in This is news? Who exactly were these eight volumes edited recently by Donald ‘‘people who thought about social problems Bond (1965; 1987). Samuel Johnson, no less, and human behavior’’? Surely not sociolo- famously wrote that Addison had set the gists. Thus, the world’s most influential standard for English prose, and Leslie Ste- newspaper, giving Brooks an unequalled phen (Virginia Woolf’s father) claimed in megaphone into the ears of the ‘‘educated’’ 1904 that three generations of essayists masses, disperses information that has been went to school on The Spectator (Mackie

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1998: 25-26). There is a great deal of ‘‘social talked and swore loud, was unmannerly to those science’’ within their pages, as their audien- above him, and insolent to those below him. I ces well knew, along with humor and pun- could not but remark, that it was the same Base- gent gossip. They wrote about everything ness of Spirit which worked in his Behaviour in they believed their urban, upwardly mobile, both Fortunes: The same little Mind was insolent nascent middle-class audience would pay to in Riches, and shameless in Poverty. This Acci- read, and at one point they claimed with rea- dent made me muse upon the Circumstances of son that most of London knew their work by being in Debt in general, and solve in my Mind means of coffeehouse subscriptions. what Tempers were most apt to fall into this Error of Life, as well as the Misfortune it must needs be Because university disciplines did not to languish under such Pressures .... exist beyond the trivium and quadrivium, When I walk the Street, and observe the Hurry sociologically-attuned essayists like Addison about me in this Town, I say, when I behold this and Steele could wander throughout social vast Variety of Persons and Humours, with the life as they chose without worrying about Pains they both take for the Accomplishment of overstepping turf perimeters. Their goal the Ends mentioned in the above Verse of Denham was not only to entertain but also to instruct: (‘‘Where with like Haste, tho’ diff’rent Ways they run; to show the burgeoning bourgeoisie how to Some to undo, and some to be undone’’) I cannot civilize itself, and how to display superiority much wonder at the Endeavour after Gain, but over the degenerate aristocrats whom they am extremely astonished that Men can be so simultaneously envied and loathed. It is an insensible of the Danger of running into Debt. old story going back at least to the Greeks, One would think it impossible a Man who is giv- but Addison and Steele made sure that their en to contract Debts should know, that his Credi- classical references were comprehensible, tor has, from that Moment in which he and their points of attack immediately transgresses Payment, so much as that Demand ‘‘useful’’ to their many readers. The list of comes to in his Debtor’s Honour, Liberty, and For- their topics was endless: polite conversation, tune. One would think he did not know, that his imagination, false wit, the Lottery, debt, Creditor can say the worst thing imaginable of extravagance, the value of money, political him, to wit, That he is unjust, without Defamation; misreading, coffeehouse society, female edu- and can seize his Person, without being guilty of cation, successful marriage, the coquette’s an Assault. Yet such is the loose and abandoned heart, dueling. Turn of some Men’s Minds, that they can live Considering the obsession with debt (per- under these constant Apprehensions, and still sonal, corporate, and national) which has go on to encrease the Cause of them. Can there gripped our world-economy for several be a more low and servile Condition, than to be years, we have Steele’s admonitions about ashamed, or afraid, to see any one Man breathing? Yet he that is much in Debt, is in that Condition ‘‘The Misery of Debt’’ from Spectator No. 82 with relation to twenty different People. There (June 4, 1711): are indeed Circumstances wherein Men of honest Passing under Ludgate the other Day, I heard Natures may become liable to Debts, by some a Voice bawling for Charity, which I thought I unadvised Behaviour in any great Point of their had somewhere heard before. Coming near to Life, or mortgaging a Man’s Honesty as a Security the Grate, the Prisoner called me by my Name, for that of another, and the like; but these Instan- and desired I would throw something into the ces are so particular and circumstantiated, that Box: I was out of Countenance for him, and did they cannot come within general Considerations. as he bid me, by putting in half a Crown. I went away, reflecting upon the strange Constitution of Could it be that Steele’s sentiments have some Men, and how meanly they behave them- echoed to our present day, so that when selves in all Sorts of Conditions. The Person George Bush asked Americans in 2008 to who begged of me is now, as I take it, Fifty; I increase their indebtedness as a sign of patri- was well acquainted with him till about the Age otism, they resisted en masse, and began to of Twenty-five; at which Time a good Estate fell save instead? to him by the Death of a Relation. Upon coming Naturally, The Spectator had much to to this unexpected good Fortune, he ran into all say about education, and the distinction the Extravagancies imaginable; was frequently between ‘‘fine breeding’’ and lesser achieve- in drunken Disputes, broke Drawers Heads, ments for youth:

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The general Mistake among us in Educating our circumstances; but was prevented by his asking Children, is, That in our Daughters we take care of me, with a whisper, whether the last letters their Persons and neglect their Minds: in our Sons brought any accounts that one might rely upon we are so intent upon adorning their Minds, that from Bender? I told him, none that I heard of; we wholly neglect their Bodies. It is from this and asked him, whether he had yet married his that you shall see a young Lady celebrated and eldest daughter? He told me, No. ‘‘But pray,’’ admired in all the Assemblies about Town, when says he, ‘‘tell me sincerely, what are your thoughts her elder Brother is afraid to come into a Room. of the King of Sweden?’’ For though his wife and From this ill Management it arises, That we fre- children were starving, I found his chief concern quently observe a Man’s Life is half spent before at present was for this great monarch. I told him, he is taken notice of; and a Woman in the Prime that I looked upon him as one of the first heroes of her Years is out of Fashion and neglected (No. of the age. ‘‘But pray,’’ says he, ‘‘do you think there 66; May 16, 1711). is anything in the story of his wound?’’ And find- Much is currently being written about ing me surprised at the question, ‘‘Nay,’’ says he, ‘‘I internet or iPhone addiction. It seems this, only propose it to you.’’ I answered, that I thought too, is nothing new, as recorded in No. 155 there was no reason to doubt of it. ‘‘But why in of The Tatler on April 6, 1710: the heel,’’ says he, ‘‘more than in any other part There lived some years since within my neigh- of the body?’’ ‘‘Because,’’ says I, ‘‘the bullet chanced bourhood a very grave person, an upholsterer to light there.’’ [one Edward Arne, of Covent Garden], who This extraordinary dialogue was no sooner end- seemed a man of more than ordinary application ed, but he began to launch out into a long disserta- to business. He was a very early riser, and was tion upon the affairs of the North; and after having often abroad two or three hours before any of his spent some time on them, he told me, he was in neighbours. He had a particular carefulness in a great perplexity how to reconcile the Supplement the knitting of his brows, and a kind of impatience with the English Post, and had been just now exam- in all his motions, that plainly discovered he was ining what the other papers say upon the same always intent on matters of importance. Upon subject. ‘‘The Daily Courant,’’ says he, ‘‘has these my inquiry into his life and conversation, I found words, ‘We have advices from very good hands, him to be the greatest newsmonger in our quarter; that a certain prince has some matters of great that he rose before day to read the Postman; and importance under consideration.’ This is very mys- that he would take two or three turns to the other terious; but the Postboy leaves us more in the dark, end of the town before his neighbours were up, to for he tells us, that there are private intimations of see if there were any Dutch mails come in. He had measures taken by a certain prince, which time will a wife and several children; but was much more bring to light. Now the Postman,’’ says he, ‘‘who inquisitive to know what passed in Poland than used to be very clear, refers to the same news in in his own family, and was in greater pain and these words: ‘The late conduct of a certain prince anxiety of mind for King Augustus’ welfare affords great matter of speculation.’ This certain than that of his nearest relations. He looked prince,’’ says the upholsterer, ‘‘whom they are all extremely thin in a dearth of news, and never so cautious of naming, I take to be ——.’’ Upon enjoyed himself in a westerly wind. This indefat- which, though there was nobody near us, he whis- igable kind of life was the ruin of his shop; for pered something in my ear, which I did not hear, or about the time that his favourite prince left the think worth my while to make him repeat. crown of Poland, he broke and disappeared. We were now got to the upper end of the Mall, This man and his affairs had been long out of where were three or four very odd fellows sitting my mind, till about three days ago, as I was walk- together upon the bench. These I found were all ing in St. James’s Park, I heard somebody at a dis- of them politicians, who used to sun themselves tance hemming after me: and who should it be but in that place every day about dinner-time. Observ- my old neighbour the upholsterer! I saw he was ing them to be curiosities in their kind, and my reduced to extreme poverty, by certain shabby friend’s acquaintance, I sat down among them. superfluities in his dress: for notwithstanding The chief politician of the bench was a great that it was a very sultry day for the time of the asserter of paradoxes. He told us, with a seeming year, he wore a loose great-coat and a muff, with concern, that by some news he had lately read a long campaign-wig out of curl; to which he had from Muscovy, it appeared to him that there was added the ornament of a pair of black garters a storm gathering in the Black Sea, which might buckled under the knee. Upon his coming up to in time do hurt to the naval forces of this nation. me, I was going to inquire into his present To this he added, that for his part, he could not

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 4 Editor’s Remarks wish to see the Turk driven out of Europe, which This paper I design for the particular benefit of he believed could not but be prejudicial to those worthy citizens who live more in a coffee- our woollen manufacture. He then told us, that house than in their shops, and whose thoughts he looked upon those extraordinary revolutions are so taken up with the affairs of the Allies, that which had lately happened in these parts of the they forget their customers. world, to have risen chiefly from two persons There is no need to go on—though the who were not much talked of; ‘‘and those,’’ says temptation is great. With all of Addison and he, ‘‘are Prince Menzikoff and the Duchess of Mir- Steele’s essays available online through Pro- andola.’’ He backed his assertions with so many ject Gutenberg, the sociological mindset can broken hints, and such a show of depth and wis- be fed without cost, and with very little effort. dom, that we gave ourselves up to his opinions. An introductory sociology course could easi- The discourse at length fell upon a point which seldom escapes a knot of true-born Englishmen, ly be built around their remarks. whether in case of a religious war, the Protestants The same could be said for William Hazlitt would not be too strong for the Papists? This we (1778-1830), in stature and achievement unanimously determined on the Protestant side. roughly analogous to Addison and Steele One who sat on my right hand, and, as I found a century later. According to his latest biogra- by his discourse, had been in the West Indies, pher, he was the ‘‘first modern man’’ (Wu assured us, that it would be a very easy matter 2008), and the creator of the modern essay for the Protestants to beat the Pope at sea; and form followed by Gore Vidal and other nota- added, that whenever such a war does break out, bles, as well as an accomplished portrait it must turn to the good of the Leeward Islands. painter. In January, 1821 he lived hermit-like Upon this, one who sat at the end of the bench, in Winterslow Hut (four miles east of Salis- and, as I afterwards found, was the geographer of bury, England), while writing a great deal. the company, said, that in case the Papists should There he discovered ‘‘the sociological imagi- drive the Protestants from these parts of Europe, nation’’ long before C. Wright Mills did in when the worst came to the worst, it would be Table Talk impossible to beat them out of Norway and Green- 1959. In Essay VI of , ‘‘On Living land, provided the Northern crowns hold together, to One-self’’ (a phrase he borrowed from and the Czar of Muscovy stand neuter. Lady Grandison), he observes that this He further told us for our comfort, that there were mode of being: is living in the world, as in it, vast tracts of land about the Pole, inhabited neither not of it: it is as if no one knew there was a such by Protestants nor Papists, and of greater extent a person, and you wish no one to know it: it is to than all the Roman Catholic dominions in Europe. be a silent spectator of the mighty scene of things, When we had fully discussed this point, my not an object of attention or curiosity in it; to take friend the upholsterer began to exert himself a thoughtful, anxious interest in what is passing upon the present negotiations of peace, in which in the world, but not to feel the slightest inclination he deposed princes, settled the bounds of king- to make or meddle with it. It is such a life as a pure doms, and balanced the power of Europe, with spirit might be supposed to lead, and such an great justice and impartiality. interest as it might take in the affairs of men, I at length took my leave of the company, and calm, contemplative, passive, distant, touched was going away; but had not been gone thirty with pity for their sorrows, smiling at their follies yards, before the upholsterer hemmed again after without bitterness, sharing the affections, but not me. Upon his advancing towards me, with a whis- troubled by their passions, not seeking the notice, per, I expected to hear some secret piece of news nor once dreamt of by them. He who lives wisely which he had not thought fit to communicate to to himself and to his own heart, looks at the busy the bench; but instead of that, he desired me in world through the loop-holes of retreat, and does my ear to lend him half a crown. In compassion not want to mingle in the fray. ‘‘He hears the to so needy a statesman, and to dissipate the con- tumult, but is still’’ (Hazlitt, n.d., vol. II, 65). fusion I found he was in, I told him, if he pleased, This presages Weber’s view of the scholar I would give him five shillings, to receive five in ‘‘Science as a Vocation’’ as well as C. Wright pounds of him when the Great Turk was driven Mills’ ‘‘view from Mars’’ which the sociolo- out of Constantinople; which he very readily gist must adopt when interpreting a society accepted, but not before he had laid down to me accurately. the impossibility of such an event, as the affairs In February, 1828, Hazlitt described ‘‘The of Europe now stand. Main Chance,’’ a phrase that long outlived

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 Editor’s Remarks 5 his other works, and here he directly speaks Wallerstein’s The Modern World-System, Vol- to David Brooks’ recent Times column: ume 1, appeared nearly 40 years ago, and I am one of those who do not think that man- was first conceived in the late 1960s. As we kind are [sic] exactly governed by reason or learn from his autobiographical statement a cool calculation of consequences. I rather believe following, the book was rejected by several that habit, imagination, sense, passion, prejudice, publishers, then finally taken up through words, make a strong and frequent diversion the skeptical interest of Charles Tilly, who from the right line of prudence and wisdom. I was looking for books to fill a series he had am told, however, that these are merely the irreg- begun. That reviews of the book graced ularities and exceptions, and that reason forms the first page of The New York Times the rule or basis; that the understanding, instead Book Review (December, 1974) as well as of being the sport of the capricious and arbitrary receiving long treatment in The New York decisions of the will, generally dictates the line Review of Books (April, 1975) signaled the of conduct it is to pursue, and that self interest beginning of a new, fruitful movement in or the main chance is the unvarying load-star of comparative-historical sociology. And in our affections or the chief ingredient in all our order to find out how big it was, and how motives, that thrown in as ballast gives steadiness large it promises to be, one need only read and direction to our voyage through life (ibid., p. 158; Table Talk). the five masterful essays which follow Wal- He then explains, in ways which one ima- lerstein’s reminiscences, capped by a related gines Brooks would find enlightening, how review by Stinchcombe. Taking the time to rationality does not go very far in explaining study works created and admired ‘‘back in human behavior; even Foucault might be the old days’’ requires a type of discipline amplified by Hazlitt: ‘‘there are families so that seems ever less available to scholars, notorious for this kind of surveillance and novices and veterans alike, pushed as they meanness, that no servant will go to live are by professional norms and galloping with them’’ (p. 159). technology to remain ‘‘current’’— even Hazlitt’s sentiments in ‘‘On Reading Old when currency is less rewarding than one Books’’ (from Table Talk, First Series) can be might hope. directed at the current issue of our journal: ‘‘I hate to read new books. There are twenty References or thirty volumes that I have read over and Brooks, David. 2011: ‘‘Who You Are.’’ The New over again, and these are the only ones that York Times, October 20. I have any desire ever to real at all. . . . I Hazlitt, William. n.d. [1880?] The Miscellaneous have more confidence in the dead than the Works of William Hazlitt. 3 volumes. Boston: living. . .the dust and smoke and noise of Estes and Lauriat. modern literature have nothing in common Jahoda, Gustav. 2007: A History of Social Psycholo- with the pure, silent air of immortality’’ gy: From the Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment to the Second World War. Cambridge, UK: Cam- (ibid., vol. II, pp. 15-16). Of course, he bridge University Press. was referring to Literature, not social Mackie, Erin (ed). 1998: The Commerce of Everyday science, yet the notion that certain ‘‘old Life: Selections from The Tatler and The Specta- books’’ retain merit over time, while the cur- tor. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. rent crop may well not, speaks to my deci- Wu, Duncan. 2008: William Hazlit: The First Mod- sion to give unusual attention to an ageing ern Man. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. book and its succeeding volumes. Immanuel

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SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM ON THE MODERN WORLD-SYSTEM, VOLS. I-IV, BY IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN

Reflections on an Intellectual Adventure

IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN Yale University [email protected]

When I started out to write The Modern on an equal level with an interest in the pan- World-System (MWS) in 1970, I had no idea European world. I thought I was going to that forty-one years later I would be publish- emphasize India as a focus of work, but the ing its fourth volume and asserting that I accidents of activity in youth organizations needed three more volumes to finish the led me to important contacts with Africa work. What started out as an attempt to (and indeed particularly French-speaking write up, in brief compass, what I had been Africa). So I decided to do a doctoral disser- teaching as a course for a few years became tation on an African topic, with the aid of the a lifetime intellectual adventure. then new Ford Foundation grants for area To understand this, I have to begin at the studies. Fortunately, once again, the gradu- beginning. I grew up in New York City in ate department of sociology at Columbia the heyday of Roosevelt’s New Deal, the looked upon this interest with a bemused world struggle against fascism, and the Sec- eye. Why not? they seemed to imply. One ond World War, during which I was just a lit- more geographical zone for the Columbia tle too young to be drafted. As I think about sociology department to conquer. the things that might explain the paths I later In 1958, I began teaching at Columbia in took, two things stand out. the college. I had to teach two sections of The first was that I was voraciously inter- a required course in the college’s general ested in everything, and therefore had a very education program and one other course. difficult time deciding what might be But what other course? The chair of the col- a career path or even a disciplinary empha- lege sociology department was then C. sis in college. Fortunately, I went to Colum- Wright Mills. I asked him what he would bia for my BA (and later for my MA and suggest. And he, typically, said, why not PhD). Columbia College was very proud of teach your dissertation? So I invented anchoring its curriculum in ‘‘general educa- a course which I called ‘‘Changing Institu- tion,’’ and at that time did not even require tions in New Nations.’’ The next year, it that a student ‘‘major’’ in one discipline. So was made a 400-level course, which meant I wandered across the disciplines, and only that it was open both for juniors and seniors decided that I would do graduate studies in the college, and for graduate students. in sociology in my last semester. I chose soci- The second fortuitous event happened in ology in fact because I saw it as the least the graduate school. Columbia’s graduate restrictive of the disciplines. department had a very eclectic view of The second particularity, and this goes methodology. It insisted that all graduate back to my high school days, was an interest students take two semesters of methodology in the non-Western world, not instead of but courses. But it offered them a choice of six

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 Special Symposium 7 one-semester courses, both quantitative and as I went along. What I did, however, in each qualitative. One of them was called ‘‘Com- successive session was to combine a histori- parative Sociology’’ and had been taught cal locus (moving forward from the six- by an assistant professor who was in fact teenth century) with a particular theoretical an anthropologist by training. His course conundrum. I doubt that the course was was based on the Human Relations Area very good or very clear. But it too seemed Files that were then in vogue. attuned to the demands of the times. The But he left the department after three graduate students were very responsive. years for a real anthropology department. I had been invited to be a fellow of the And the department did not want to lose Center of Advanced Study in the Behavioral the option. So, one day, Robert Merton, Sciences (CASBS) for 1969–70. But 1968 then the chair, invited Terry Hopkins and broke out at Columbia, and I was involved me to lunch. Terry and I had joined the full-time with the student strike, the faculty department the same year and we were attempt to mediate between the administra- already seen as an intellectual team. Merton tion and the students, and then the attempt suggested that we jointly take over the to create a faculty senate at Columbia. I ‘‘Comparative Sociology’’ methodology was so involved that I forgot to accept the course. We did, changing it radically, and CASBS invitation in time. Fortunately, Rob- renaming it ‘‘The Comparative Study of ert Merton (who was otherwise most National Societies.’’ unsympathetic to my activities during the This was the era of John F. Kennedy, and 1968 uprising) was still a key figure in the the department suddenly had a lot of gradu- CASBS, and he arranged that I be invited ate students who had spent two years in the again for 1970–71. Peace Corps, and were therefore oriented to Because of 1968, I took a time-out from concerns with what was then called the writing about Africa to write about the uni- ‘‘Third World.’’ Our new methodology versity for two years or so. But then I went course was just what they were looking for, to Palo Alto to start my fellowship there in and it was instantly extremely popular. September, 1970. Palo Alto was still then There I was, at Columbia, writing about what Dan Bell famously called ‘‘the leisure Africa and teaching courses about the Third of the theory class.’’ It was an ideal setting World. I spent a sabbatical year in Africa in for full-time research and writing. I went 1965–66, doing research for my book on Afri- there with the intention of writing up a small can unity. I divided my time between Accra book based on my course on social change. in Ghana (then the fount of strong pan- Like the course, it was to combine chronolo- African sentiment) and Dar es Salaam in gy with theory. It soon became clear to me Tanzania (then the headquarters of the Afri- that the chapter on the sixteenth century can Liberation Committee of the Organiza- would have to be a whole book. And by tion of African Unity). June 1971, I had basically written what Over that year, I gave three public talks— would become Volume I of MWS. the first in Accra, the second in Ibadan I started at that point to teach at McGill. (Nigeria) which I visited, and the third in When the Christmas break came, I realized Dar es Salaam. These talks were in fact an that I was rather unhappy with Chapter evolving set of reflections about post- Two of Volume I, so I spent the break rewrit- independence Africa in the world-system. ing it as well as creating an elaborate index. I There turned out to be a great deal of interest may also have done the ‘‘theoretical reprise’’ in this theme. It was about this time that I at that time. Now I had a book. It turned out discovered Fernand Braudel’s books on the it was not at all easy to get it published. This Mediterranean, and this had a big impact was a massively footnoted book about the on how I began to think about the topic. sixteenth century. Who might be interested? When I returned to Columbia, I changed I had signed a contract with a previous pub- my now year-long course on ‘‘new nations’’ lisher. But then the publisher rescinded the to one I called ‘‘Social Change: Moderniza- contract, on the grounds that the book was tion.’’ This was a terrible title in the light of unsellable. Another publisher refused it on my later views, and the course was invented the grounds that some other book he was

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 8 Special Symposium publishing (a book now long forgotten) was We ignored totally the discipline in which covering the same ground (it wasn’t). invited faculty had received their degrees. Finally after several other rebuffs, Chuck In the process, we acquired faculty from Tilly, who was then the series editor of across the disciplines in terms of their train- a new social science series at Academic ing. We established a program of Adjunct Press, decided to ‘‘take a chance’’ on the Professors (all located outside the United book. And the imaginative staff editor for States) who came on a recurrent basis for the series, Stanley Holwitz, made the crucial six weeks each year to give intensive (if expensive) decision to put the footnotes at courses. And we recruited students from the bottom of the page rather than as end- around the world on the basis of their notes in the rear. We were launched. work and interests in the kind of work we The reception was unexpected and were doing, many of whom joined us after remarkable. I describe it in the Prologue to years in the non-university world. Terry the new edition of MWS I. Three things res- had the habit of telling any graduate student cued it from what might have been obscuri- applicant who had received offers from us ty. The book in manuscript had been and from some more standard prominent circulating more than I realized, and it department that, if in the least doubt, they came to the attention of Gertrud Lenzer, should go to the more standard prominent who persuaded The New York Times to let department. her do a first-page review in December of As for the FBC, the key to our operation 1974. In April 1975, Keith Thomas did was the concept of the Research Working a review for The New York Review of Books Group (RWG). Such groups had one or that discussed MWS I along with two books more coordinators plus multiple faculty by Perry Anderson under the rubric of ‘‘jum- and graduate students (from any depart- bo history.’’ And at the 1975 meeting of the ment at the university, and sometimes from American Sociological Association, MWS I other universities). The RWGs were orga- was given the award (then called the Sorokin nized around some very general theme Award) for distinguished scholarship. (say, households or antisystemic move- The story now shifts to world-systems ments) and spent the first year or so seeking analysis as a concept and as an intellectual collectively to define a problem and an movement. My colleague and co-worker, approach to doing research, provided the Terry Hopkins, had been lured away from research was done over the longue dure´e Columbia by the Sociology Department of and was geographically broad. SUNY-Binghamton. They wanted to start The RWGs typically took 3–10 years to do a graduate program and asked him to create their work, the membership necessarily it and run it. After a year or two, they needed evolving somewhat over that time. The an outside evaluation, and Paul Lazarsfeld work was seen as exploratory and not defin- and I were the team to do it. I was of course itive. The data was of every conceivable vari- very sympathetic to what Terry was estab- ety. And the outcome was to be a single lishing and Lazarsfeld was impressed. It book—not a collection of essays, but an was then, I think, that he proclaimed that argued collective work. Over thirty years, Terry and I represented ‘‘His Majesty’s Loyal a large number of books of this variety Opposition’’—to the Columbia program he were published. had established with Merton. Funding was of course always an issue. Terry then devoted his energies to getting The university paid for minimal infrastruc- me to join him at Binghamton. With the aid ture, but not for these research projects. We of a sympathetic administrator, I was invited of course applied for outside funds to all of to come in 1976 as chair of the department, the many usual grant-giving agencies. We which I remained for four years, and direc- found that we often had to work for three tor of a research institute that was to be cre- or four years before we had a project that ated, the Fernand Braudel Center (FBC), was ‘‘fundable.’’ And we discovered that which I remained until 2005. when we applied for funds to such agencies We established three principles about as the NSF, which had outside reviewers, the recruitment to the graduate department. reviews came in regularly at two extremes.

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Half found the projects wonderful and half activities will attest to the fact that we have thought they were worthless. been able to steer between the shoals. It was after a few such experiences that we I wrote in 1998 an article entitled ‘‘The Rise realized we had to tackle head-on the issue and Future Demise of World-Systems Analy- of appropriate methodology for research in sis.’’ In it, I argued that the role of challenger what we were calling historical social sci- or gadfly works only for a while. Either the ence. This led the FBC into a new arena of premises on which we have been operating work on what we called the structures of become mainstream or not. In either case, knowledge, which led to other kinds of proj- something called world-systems analysis ects such as Open the Social Sciences, the would probably no longer exist. And the report of the Gulbenkian Commission. prospects of becoming ‘‘mainstream’’ depend I will not review here all the critiques of less on the quality or forcefulness of our writ- world-systems analysis. I do this in the ings but on the transformed social context new Prologue to MWS I. But I wish to within which ‘‘mainstreams’’ are created. I emphasize one major attempt at steering have long argued that the modern world- between Scylla and Charybdis. In all system is in structural crisis—a crisis whose the work associated with world-systems outcome is both unpredictable and uncertain. analysis—the work of the FBC, the annual It is how this crisis is resolved that will deter- meetings of the Political Economy of the mine the mainstreams of the future. World-System (PEWS) Section of the ASA, Finally, I have insisted, much to the the international colloquia the FBC co-spon- despair of even my friends, that there is no sored for some twenty years—we tried to such thing as ‘‘world-systems theory,’’ only avoid two things. On the one hand, we a perspective or a mode of analysis. Calling wanted to be open to a range of approaches it a theory implies a degree of closure, which to world-historical work, not to become in I for one do not believe is legitimate. We are any sense a closed sect. But on the other an intellectual movement, whose future I hand, we wanted to stand for something, have just said is uncertain. But it is one to not to be diluted in some amorphous whole, whose premises I am committed. And the such as ‘‘global sociology.’’ It has not been multiple volumes of MWS are the keystone easy to do this, but I think that most persons of my own work, which I still regard as an who have been involved in our multiple intellectual adventure.

The Emergence of Predominant Capitalism: The Long Sixteenth Century

CHRISTOPHER CHASE-DUNN University of California, Riverside [email protected]

The new edition of Immanuel Wallerstein’s Volume One of The Modern World-System, The Modern World-System, Vol. I: Capitalist originally published in 1974, is more beauti- Agriculture and the Origins of the European ful than the original both because of its cov- World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century, er, and because 37 years of subsequent by Immanuel Wallerstein, Berkeley, scholarship and world historical events CA: University of California Press, have demonstrated the scientific and practi- 2011. 442pp. $29.95 paper. ISBN: cal utility of the theoretical approach devel- 9780520267572. oped in this seminal work. If you care about human social change you need to read this book. If you have already read it, focuses on whole interpolity systems rather you should read it again, as I just have. than single polities. The tendency in socio- The world-systems perspective is a strate- logical theory has been to think of single gy for explaining institutional change that national societies as whole systems. This

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 10 Special Symposium has led to many errors, because the idea of Why did Portugal begin the second wave a system usually implies closure and that of European expansion in 1415 CE?2 What the most important processes are endoge- was it about Portugal’s position in the Euro- nous. National societies (both their states pean world-economy in the early fifteenth and their nations) have emerged over the century, its class structure, the nature of the last few centuries to become the strongest Portuguese state, and its alliance with Geno- socially-constructed identities and organiza- ese finance capitalists, that led it to rewire tions in the modern world, but they have the long distance trade network with the never been whole systems. They have East by going around Africa? Wallerstein always existed in a larger context of impor- discusses differences in cultural and political tant interaction networks (trade, warfare, institutions and how these interacted with long-distance communication) that have demographic pressures, epidemic diseases, greatly shaped events and social change. and climate changes that affected the pro- Well before the emergence of globalization duction of ‘‘food and fuel.’’3 This kind of in the popular consciousness, the world- attention to agriculture, demography, pro- systems perspective developed by Waller- duction, and class relations is what is miss- stein, Samir Amin, Andre Gunder Frank, ing in Giovanni Arrighi’s version of the and Giovanni Arrighi focused on the world evolution of the Europe-centered system as economy and the system of interacting poli- presented in his The Long Twentieth Century ties, rather than on single national societies. (1994). But Arrighi’s focus on ‘‘the shadowy This has now become taken-for-granted, but realm’’ that constitutes the collaboration when Volume One was written this was not between finance capital and hegemonic state so. This book helped to change the intellectu- power is also largely missing in Wallerstein’s al landscape and to make all the subsequent approach.4 They complement each other and world-systems research possible. both need to be read for a complete under- Wallerstein’s new prologue responds to standing of the emergence of modern several of the major criticisms that have capitalism. been made of Volume One. Critics said that Wallerstein’s analysis of East-West simi- the book was too economistic, ignoring pol- larities and differences that account for the itics and culture. Marxists said that Waller- rise of predominant capitalism in Europe stein ignored class relations. Wallerstein’s and the continued predominance of the trib- approach to world history is evolutionary, utary logic in East Asia is presented in Chap- though he does not use that word. He com- ter One. Summing up his detailed discussion pares regions and national societies with of the main factors that account for the East/ each other within the same time periods, West divergence, Wallerstein says: but he also compares them with earlier and later instances in order to comprehend the The essential difference between China long-term trajectories of social change and and Europe reflects once again the con- to explain the qualitative transformation in juncture of a secular trend with a more systemic logic that began to emerge in immediate economic cycle. The long- Europe in the long sixteenth century (1450- term secular trend goes back to the 1640 CE). His theoretical framework contem- ancient empires of Rome and China, plates a ‘‘whole system’’ and how that sys- tem has changed or remained the same 2 As Wallerstein notes in Chapter One, the first over time while expanding to become a sin- wave was the European effort to conquer the gle Earth-wide integrated network. The Holy Land, spurred on by militant Christen- questions asked derive from this orientation, dom and the Venetian desire to have cheaper but the questions are answered in Volume access to the goods of the East. 3 One by a critical review of controversies Jason Moore (2003) characterizes Wallerstein’s 1 analytic narrative as an environmental history among economic historians. of the emergence of capitalism. 4 But on pp. 49 and 52 Wallerstein discusses the relationship between the Portuguese state and 1 The best critical appraisal of Wallerstein’s Genoese finance capital that is the basis of Ar- method is Goldfrank (2000). righi’s first ‘‘systemic cycle of accumulation.’’

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the ways in which and the degree to combination of millennial and conjunctural which they disintegrated. While the time scales. Roman framework remained a thin Those critics who say that Wallerstein memory whose medieval reality was ignores class struggle must not have read mediated largely by a common church, the book. Not only does he carefully analyze the Chinese managed to retain an both rural and urban class relations, but he imperial political structure, albeit provides a fascinating analysis of the global a weakened one. This was the differ- class structure in the long sixteenth century ence between a feudal system and (pp. 86-87), thereby deflating those in the a world-empire based on a prebendal ‘‘global capitalism’’ school who say that his bureaucracy. China could maintain ‘‘state-centric’’ analysis ignores system- a more advanced economy in many wide class relations. His analysis of ‘‘coerced ways than Europe as a result of this. cash-crop labor’’ (the use of slave and serf And quite possibly the degree of labor to produce commodities for the exploitation of the peasantry over world market) is fundamental to the most a thousand years was less. important element of the world-systems To this given, we must add the more perspective—that modern capitalism has recent agronomic thrusts of each, of required an intersocietal hierarchy, an Europe toward cattle and wheat, and unequal division of labor between a sys- of China toward rice. The latter requir- tem-wide core and periphery (p. 91). Waller- ing less space but more men, the secu- stein added depth to the analysis of core/ lar pinch hit the two systems in periphery relations when he realized that different ways. Europe needed to formal colonialism was not the only way in expand geographically more than Chi- which an unequal international division of na did. And to the extent that some labor had been structured. This had already groups in China might have found been theorized by the dependency theorists expansion rewarding, they were using the idea of neo-colonialism, but Wal- restrained by the fact that crucial deci- lerstein discovered a similar case in the sions were centralized in an imperial way that an unequal division of labor framework that had to concern itself between Poland and Western Europe had first and foremost with short-run main- underdeveloped Poland in the long six- tenance of the political equilibrium of teenth century. His careful comparison of its world-system. the ‘‘second serfdom’’ in Eastern Europe So China, if anything seemingly bet- with the class structures emerging in colo- ter placed prima facie to move forward nial Latin America in the sixteenth century to capitalism in terms of already having is fascinating, as is his analysis of the emer- an extensive state bureaucracy, being gence of intermediate forms of labor control further advanced in terms of the mone- in the regions of Europe that were becoming tization of the economy and possible of semiperipheral. Elsewhere I have contended technology as well, was nonetheless that Wallerstein erred in using the ‘‘mode of less well placed after all. It was bur- production’’ criteria (capitalism) to spatially dened by an imperial political structure bound the Europe-centered system (Chase- (p. 63). Dunn 1998). Europe and its non-core regions were not a separate whole system in the six- We now know much more about China teenth century. The European states were because of the careful comparative work still fighting and allying with the Ottoman of the ‘‘California School’’ of world histori- Empire in ways that greatly influenced the ans (e.g., Kenneth Pomeranz 2001) and Gio- selection of winners and losers within vanni Arrighi’s Adam Smith in Beijing (2007) Europe. Europe was a semiperipheral region as well as the important collection of essays to the old West Asian core and an instance of in Arrighi, Hamashita, and Selden (2003). what Thomas D. Hall and I have called But Wallerstein’s analysis of the main ‘‘semiperipheral development’’ (Chase- elements explaining the East/West diver- Dunn and Hall 1997). But Wallerstein is gence is still the best because of its fruitful right that capitalism was emerging to

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 12 Special Symposium predominance in the West, and his insightful Chase-Dunn, Christopher and Thomas D. Hall. focus on this evolutionary problem is what 1997. Rise and Demise: Comparing World- makes his approach to world history so use- Systems. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Goldfrank, Walter L. 2000. ‘‘Paradigm Regained?: ful. Both reading and rereading Volume One the Rules of Wallerstein’s World-System Meth- is a very rewarding experience. od.’’ In Giovanni Arrighi and Walter L. Gold- frank, eds. 2000. Festschrift for Immanuel Wallerstein. Journal of World-Systems Research References 6 (2): 150-95. Moore, Jason. 2003. ‘‘The Modern World-System Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The Long Twentieth Centu- as Environmental History? Ecology and the ry. London, UK: Verso. Rise of Capitalism.’’ Theory and Society 32 (3): ———. 2007. Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 307-77. 21st Century. New York, NY: Verso. Pomeranz, Kenneth. 2001. The Great Divergence: ———. Takeshi Hamashita and Mark Selden, eds. China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern 2003. The Resurgence of East Asia: 500, 150 and 50 World Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni- Year Perspectives. London, UK: Routledge. versity Press. Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1998. Global Formation: Structures of the World-Economy. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Revisiting the Rise of the West

DANIEL CHIROT University of Washington, Seattle [email protected]

Immanuel Wallerstein’s second volume of the World-System series has been read The Modern World-System, Vol. II: Mercan- much less than the first one, though in tilism and the Consolidation of the European some ways it should be more crucial because World-Economy, 1600–1750,byImma- it was from roughly the early seventeenth nuel Wallerstein. Berkeley, CA: Univer- century to the late eighteenth that the sity of California Press, 2011. 370pp. groundwork was laid for the truly revolu- $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9780520267589. tionary historical change that was to come afterward. In the late-1500s, Habsburg Spain was still trying to create what Wallerstein Wallerstein’s strength is not the discussion calls a ‘‘world-empire.’’ In the first volume of ideas, which he tends to view as mere he made the crucial point that such empires byproducts of economic systems, but his dis- do not generate the internal competition, cussion of the Habsburg Empire leads to which can lead to rapid progress. Early a conclusion he avoids making. In the time modern China, unlike Western Europe, of Philip II (reigned in Spain from 1556 to was a large, united empire and not a bunch 1598), despite the continuing artistic flour- of warring states spurred on to strengthen ishing that was part of Spain’s ‘‘Age of their positions in a permanently competi- Gold,’’ his alliance with the Catholic Church tive situation. Spain’s use of American pre- and the increasingly bitter attempt to crush cious metals contributed greatly to the West not only Protestantism but the free thought European expansion of the sixteenth centu- and rationalizing science and theology that ry, but the Spanish Empire was only a vast went with it doomed progress in most Habs- transoceanic plundering scheme that gener- burg lands. It so alienated its economically ated neither self-sustaining economic most advanced province, the Netherlands, growth for Spain nor the military strength that it provoked a rebellion that would even- required to bring the rest of Western and tually radically change the balance of power Central Europe under its control, so Spain in Europe. The Catholic Counter Reforma- failed. tion backed by the Habsburgs strangled the

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 Special Symposium 13 expansion of learning that had been centered are necessary to secure economic stability in Italy and relegated Iberia to intellectual and political security. Wallerstein is hardly peripherality well before its military decline the only one who has ever said this, but he made it a second-class power. If Spain had strongly proves that powerful states in succeeded in forcing its will on England which merchant and industrial entrepreneur and the Netherlands, it would have imposed (bourgeois in Marxist terminology) interests the kind of intellectual rigidity that would can guide state policies are required to make have killed, at least for some time, the rise markets work. They cannot function on of capitalism and the ascendancy in the sev- a large scale on their own. What Wallerstein enteenth century of first the Netherlands does very well, and what still holds up 30 and then England. We should remember years after the original publication, is to this in evaluating world-system theory’s rel- explain how expanding Dutch, then English evance to our own times. and French economic interests gradually In contrast, the fifteenth century Ming incorporated more of the world and began Empire successfully decreed the end of the to alter fundamentally social structures long distance fleets that had been expanding everywhere they had commercial interests. Chinese trade to India, Arabia, and even This was but a beginning, as the process Africa. Why?—to curb the upstart mer- would greatly accelerate in the nineteenth chants and supposed pirates off the coast and twentieth centuries, but Wallerstein’s of southeast China who profited from this book shows that even before the industrial expansion and threatened the existing Confu- revolutionagapwasstartingtoopenup cian cultural, political, and economic hegemo- between the core societies in northwestern ny of the Ming. But who were the English and Europe and the rest of the world, and that Dutch of the late sixteenth century in the eyes at least for some newly incorporated of the Catholic Habsburgs? They were geo- peripheral areas, this translated into impor- graphically peripheral upstarts, heretical tant internal social changes that bound merchants and pirates who threatened the them tightly to the emerging core econo- existing Catholic-Habsburg order. mies. Wallerstein also shows what classes Wallerstein explains how the Habsburgs’ were the winners and particularly the los- failure opened the way to the period covered ers in both the periphery and core. Demon- in Volume II in which a much more trade- strating that capitalist progress always and production-based, and more advanced produces some losers is something that capitalist world-system established itself. was sadly neglected in the model of change Indeed, as Jan de Vries (whose earlier work Wallerstein has spent his career trying to is much cited by Wallerstein) and Ad van demolish—modernization theory. de Woude (1997) have persuasively argued, In Volume II, as in Volume I, much of the it was the Dutch economy that was the discussion is based on the writing of the ‘‘first modern economy,’’ not Spain’s nor best, mostly European, economic and social Portugal’s. Even England subsequently had historians. Many of these were Marxists. to use Dutch technology and capital to turn Others, if not Marxists, were overwhelming- itself into the world’s greatest commercial- ly more concerned with material changes maritime power in the late seventeenth and than with the history of ideas. Wallerstein eighteenth centuries. devotes much space adjudicating their vari- Volume II makes it clear that we cannot ous disputes about what may now seem understand how Western Europe came to like fairly arcane historiographic issues; dominate the world without knowing what yet, this close textual study of historical happened in this period. Perhaps the book works in order to synthesize them into is too state-centered—England had to do a coherent narrative is one of the aspects this, Sweden tried that, France had no choice that makes these volumes so useful. Today, but to...and so on. But after all, states are such historiography is much less fashion- the main actors in the modern world, and able, and especially in its Marxist version, effectively run, properly taxed states with sadly neglected. Wallerstein has variously adequate revenues and the ability to borrow been accused of being too Eurocentric and

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 14 Special Symposium insufficiently attentive to issues of gender or even primarily, a technological event.’’ and race. That is not really fair. In their Rather, they say, it was caused by fertility time, the European Marxists inspired by declines that caused greater investment per the French Annales School, but also quite child, and thus an increase in human capital often by their own political convictions, (Lucas, pp. 169–70). In other words, as Wal- opened up a whole new understanding of lerstein believes, it was largely a matter of how Europe came to be so rich and power- incentives shifting, though for the Chicago ful, how it took over most of the world, economists, this happened at the individual and then proceeded to come close to level rather than, as Wallerstein has it, at the destroying it. The passage of time has not level of social classes (p. 263). In another diminished the important role this particular vein, Kenneth Pomerantz, in a work highly tradition played in opening up new avenues acclaimed by economic historians, has main- of research and thinking, and perhaps we tained that the reason England industrial- would do well to go back to it as we analyze ized first, and not China, was because a whole new series of changes in today’s England was lucky to have more easily world. available coal, and that it could exploit the Wallerstein’s model of how societies oper- resources of the Americas. Pomerantz does, ate gives equal weight to class structure, at least, give limited, passing credit to Eng- economies, state strength, and position in land’s ‘‘scientific culture’’ that developed the world-system. These are not divided from 1600 to 1750 (Pomerantz, pp. 44-45), into ‘‘independent’’ and ‘‘dependent’’ varia- but not much. Yet, Joel Mokyr has persua- bles as they are all so closely intertwined. sively argued that Enlightenment scientific But here, some criticism is in order. For Wal- culture, while it did not produce major tech- lerstein, science, ideology, and philosophy nological advances in the eighteenth centu- are, in a drastically Marxist way, epiphe- ry, did create the base for the astounding nomena. One would hardly know from this leaps in productivity in the nineteenth volume that the period covered is that of when scientific progress became increasing- the Enlightenment. Early in the volume ly tied to economic growth. (p. 7) he brushes this aside in one clause, At this point, we get to the question of pointing out that the period he is studying what Wallerstein’s magisterial work means also saw ‘‘...the emergence of the presum- for today’s world. We should not neglect ably ‘modern’ ideas of Descartes, Leibnitz, the fact that his project has always entailed Spinoza, Newton, and Locke...’’ So much more than just historical scholarship. In for the invention of calculus, the origins of a vast outpouring of essays and lectures he rationalizing Biblical analysis that played has repeatedly emphasized that the capital- such a big role in legitimizing the freeing ist world-system is ultimately doomed. For of minds from church dogma, the origins a long time he believed that some combina- of modern physics, and the political philoso- tion of the socialist advanced economies, phy of individual rights and freedom that the revolutionary periphery, and leftists in played a critical role in both the American the core who supported third-world libera- and French revolutions. The scientific and tion would create a new socialist world- philosophical currents that made the subse- system. Now, he is more pessimistic and quent industrial revolution possible and contends that the collapse of American hege- most importantly legitimized not only capi- mony could bring about the rise of a new talism but also evidence-based research is East Asian capitalist hegemon dominated lightly tossed aside, as if only technological by China whose chief rival might be Europe innovation mattered, and that was simply (p. xxiii). In a way, this recapitulates another the product of competition for control of one of his important contributions to sociol- the world-system. ogy, to remind us that what old-fashioned This is far from a purely Marxist orienta- analysts called the international balance of tion. University of Chicago and Economics power matters, and that we need to take it Nobel Prize winners Robert Lucas and into account. Gary Becker have proposed that‘‘...the Wallerstein’s personal ideology in the industrial revolution was not exclusively, days when both the Soviet Union and

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 Special Symposium 15 third-world revolutionary regimes promised world partly determined by ideas that are to overturn capitalism was that his analysis related to, but not entirely dependent on, legitimized and helped that trend. Now, class structures and economies. They also what if his more basic historical analysis is drive change, sometimes in ways that mate- correct? Since a socialist world-system rialist theories fail to explain. The struggle seems farther away than ever, can we expect over ideas, issues of intellectual freedom, the twenty-first century to be a series of attempts to suppress or foster new increasingly severe conflicts between a rising thoughts—these are important in determin- China and a failing America (allied with ing how societies and the entire world Europe?) punctuated by severe cyclical eco- have and will continue to evolve. Existing nomic downturns and recurrent crises? world-system theory is a major step for- There exist many far more benign interpreta- ward, but to move further requires freeing tions of capitalism that do not see it, as Wal- it from the shackles of narrow materialism. lerstein does, always driving toward There is a world-system of ideas, too, with monopolies or the domination of the system its core and periphery (even a semiperiph- by a hegemon. There are also quite different ery), and there are struggles over which interpretations of where China is heading. kinds of philosophies and ways of thinking But if we take Wallerstein seriously, the will survive or fail. It is closely correlated almost inevitable conclusion we have to with, but not identical to the modern eco- draw from his work is bleak indeed. So, nomic world-system. what role, if any, should world-system ana- Second, those who wish to continue to lysts try to play? Perhaps the stark reality expand world-system analysis have to of the situation is one, if not the only, reason accept something Max Weber tried to why this kind of scholarship has become sig- emphasize late in his life, that science and nificantly less visible than in its heyday. politics are distinct enterprises. Because Then the future of what he called anti-sys- world-system theory ultimately shut out temic action seemed to be on the road to suc- those who did not agree with its political cess and a whole younger generation of objectives, it lost a lot of its credibility. scholars could wax enthusiastic about the Some ideological open-mindedness will coming triumph of Third World socialism. surely attract the bright young minds it I think, however, that this is the wrong needs to regain its place in the social scien- way to approach Wallerstein’s contribution ces, and this will enhance rather than dam- to social analysis. Instead we should concen- age Wallerstein’s long-term legacy as one trate on his having revived a method of anal- of the great social scientists of our times. ysis that remains as valid today as in Karl Marx’s and Max Weber’s times. Societies cannot be studied in isolation. All compara- References tive sociology should be grounded in solid de Vries, Jan and Ad van der Woude. 1997. The historical knowledge. The social sciences First Modern Economy. Cambridge, UK: Cam- are too artificially divided into separate bridge University Press. fields and ought to be at least partly Lucas, Robert E. 2002. Lectures on Economic reunited. But two additions need to be Growth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. made by those who would follow in his Mokyr, Joel. 2002. The Gifts of Athena. Princeton, path. NJ: Princeton University Press. First, a materialist interpretation of the Pomerantz, Kenneth. 2000. The Great Divergence. world is not sufficient. There is also a social Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Rethinking Bourgeois Revolutions: Transformations of the World-System, 1730- 1840s

DALE TOMICH Binghamton University [email protected]

The appearance of Volume Four of Immanu- el Wallerstein’s The Modern World-System The Modern World-System, Vol. III: The marks the completion of one of the major Second Era of Great Expansion of the scholarly contributions of the past fifty Capitalist World-Economy, 1730s–1840s, years. The University of California Press is by Immanuel Wallerstein. Berkeley, to be congratulated for making the complete CA: University of California Press, work available, especially to a younger gen- 2011. 372pp. $29.95 paper. ISBN: eration of graduate students and scholars. 9780520267596. The Modern World-System is an ambitious if not audacious work that is at once complex and demanding. It attempts to accomplish less is research viewed as an attempt to two things simultaneously. On the one prove its theoretical propositions. Rather, hand, it puts forth the theoretical and meth- this perspective is an open-ended and heu- odological foundations for a new unified ristic approach that attempts to provide ade- historical social science. On the other hand, quate conditions for a systemic explanation of it is a monumental but highly compressed the decisive economic and political relations interpretation of the history of the capitalist forming the modern world. world-economy, and through that lens, The concept of world-system provides the world history, over the past five hundred ground for Wallerstein’s construction of his- years. The two tasks are closely related but tory and of historical social science. It is they are not identical. In the prologue to a means of cognition. It forms a comprehen- the new edition, Wallerstein calls attention sive analytical unit that enables him to to what he sees as the major issues entailed apprehend theoretically the world as an inte- in Volume Three, The Second Era of Great grated social whole. It enables him to con- Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, struct categories or objects of inquiry 1730s–1840s and capably defends his posi- through their relation to one another within tions. Here I am less concerned with his his- this shared analytical and practical field. torical interpretations than with discussing Here, objects of inquiry are understood not the theoretical and methodological implica- as things with properties, but as ensembles tions of his approach. of changing relations forming configurations Wallerstein’s work is commonly referred that are constantly adapting to one another to as world-systems theory. However, Waller- and to the world around them through defi- stein has argued that his approach is more nite historical processes. The epistemologi- properly understood as a perspective or cal and methodological assumption a framework for analysis rather than as a theo- guiding this approach is that the appropriate ry. This is more than a case of modesty. It has unit of analysis is the capitalist world-system definite implications for the status of the as a whole. concept of the modern world-system and Wallerstein’s assumptions turn the logic of for the kind of claims that are made for inter- conventional social science approaches on pretation and analysis. The world-system their head. Rather than presuming a plurality perspective entails an active problem- of discrete, independent, and integral social posing, problem-solving approach. It does entities (e.g., societies, states, groups, indi- not attempt to account for all facts, relations, viduals) with comparable traits, it proposes and processes, nor does it attempt to estab- a single system comprised of diverse constit- lish general laws or abstract principles. Still uent elements. These elements relate to one

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 Special Symposium 17 another as parts of a whole. No sub-unit is Revolution, the French Revolution, and like any other. Each is related to the others ‘‘the rise of the bourgeoisie.’’ Wallerstein and each is distinct in time and space. Con- critically examines these concepts from the sequently the usual logic of case compari- perspective of the long cycle of world- sons does not apply as, for Wallerstein, systemic expansion lasting from 1730 to the each ‘‘case’’ is singular in space and time, 1840s. The book is organized in three distinct and is formed through its relation with other movements: struggles for economic and such units as parts of the larger world- political dominance in the core, the incorpo- economy. Instead of comparing presumably ration of new peripheral zones of the world- discrete and independent units with one economy, and settler de-colonization and another, the explanation refers back to the state formation in the Americas. Each of whole. these interrelated and interdependent move- The concept of world-system provides ments represents a distinct aspect of the procedures that guide inquiry and establish expansion and reformation of the world- limits for theorization. It is the ground of economy, and, at the same time, each repre- explanation, both its point of departure and sents a specific set of analytical problems for its point of arrival. Analysis begins from Wallerstein’s world-system approach. the (abstract and general) concept of the Wallerstein begins the book by critically world-economy as a whole. Particular rela- examining prevailing interpretations of the tions and processes are taken not as units Industrial Revolution and the French Revo- of analysis but as units of observation. They lution. He first evaluates the various explan- may be various parts of the system or, ations of the Industrial Revolution in indeed, the system itself. The key analytical England. These interpretations generally operations here include the differentiation, presume the unique character of the Indus- spatial-temporal bounding, and specifica- trial Revolution and regard it as a break tion of phenomena within the whole. Succes- with previous historical development. Wal- sive examination of particular phenomena lerstein demonstrates the inadequacy of discloses the specific relations and processes these accounts and calls into question the through which they are formed and brings analytical utility of the concept of Industrial them into relation with the other ‘‘particu- Revolution itself. First, he argues that the lars’’ forming the world-economic whole. conditions that characterized the Industrial At the same time, such specification of par- Revolution were not unique to Britain, but ticular phenomena enables us more fully to existed elsewhere, above all, in France. Sec- reconstruct and reinterpret the complex ondly, he contends that the Industrial Revo- and densely-structured web of relations lution does not constitute a distinctive comprising the world-economy itself. Cog- historical turning point. Rather, it is an nition is understood as a continual process instance of cycles of expansion and innova- of moving from the whole, to particulars tion that are a recurrent feature of the histor- and back again through categories of ic processes forming and reforming the thought that define the system and are spe- world-system. The real turning point, in his cific to it. The concept of world-system at view, occurred with the creation of the sys- once orients research and frames analysis tem in the sixteenth century. and interpretation. Through this procedure Wallerstein next addresses the debates the structures and processes constituting over the social interpretation of the French the world-economy may be rationally com- Revolution. This interpretation views the prehended and the relations among its con- revolutionary events in France between stituent elements conceptually ordered. 1789 and 1799 as the struggle of a rising The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Cap- bourgeoisie, with the support of the popular italist World-Economy, 1730s–1840s (Volume classes, against a feudal order intent on Three of The Modern World-System) engages maintaining its privilege. The triumph of what is generally regarded as the classic this bourgeois revolution initiated the quali- moment in the formation of liberalism, capi- tative shift to a new capitalist order in talism, and modernity. The key markers for France. Wallerstein rejects the terms in this process are taken to be the Industrial which this debate is posed, but more

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 18 Special Symposium importantly he argues that the concept of the Thus, he does not offer a structuralist French Revolution, like that of the Industrial account, but incorporates class-conflict, Revolution, supports a Whig view of history. political struggles, and ideology into his In contrast to his rejection of Industrial Rev- explanatory framework. By ordering partic- olution, he accepts that something of signif- ular trends, patterns, and events within the icance did occur in France between 1789 analytical framework of the world-economy, and 1793. But the events of the French Revo- he is able to interpret causal relations among lution did not constitute either a political historically singular phenomena of diverse revolution or an economic revolution nor duration, tempo, and spatial extension and did they mark the ascendance of a new social to account for their significance. class. Rather, their most important conse- From this perspective Wallerstein deploys quences were the transformation of political the concept of interstate struggle to integrate ideology and a decisive shift in relation the ‘‘internal’’ and ‘‘external’’ histories of between France and Britain. Here too, the France and Britain in a unified analytical significant historical turning point remains field. He is then able to trace the changing the creation of the capitalist world-economy position of the two countries through the in the sixteenth century. successive conjunctural cycles of contraction Having rejected the French and Industrial and expansion from 1750 to 1815. This Revolutions as analytic categories, Waller- approach enables him to reconstruct the stein reinterprets the political and economic cumulative effects of diverse political and development of Britain and France as economic processes that increased the gap a struggle for dominance over the world- between Britain and France and restructured economy. In the third chapter he shifts the the world-economy over the entire period. unit of analysis from national societies to The struggle between the two countries the world-system. His concern here is to began on relatively even terms. He particu- establish the world-economic and relational larly calls attention to the political-military character of the particular national histories. victories that increased Britain’s advantage He contends that both the ‘‘Industrial Revo- over France. Access to overseas, and espe- lution’’ and the ‘‘French Revolution,’’ as con- cially to American markets, combined with ventionally understood, are artifacts of this an interventionist state, and fluid property long-term struggle for power. rights, allowed Britain to improve its com- In Wallerstein’s approach, the boundaries petitive position in agriculture, industry, of national societies become permeable. and trade. British success limited the options Instead of a fixed distinction between what available to France, which progressively fell is ‘‘internal’’ and what is ‘‘external’’ to behind Britain. Without adequate outlets for them, national societies appear as particular economic expansion, entrenched interests configurations within the web of systemic frustrated efforts at agricultural, industrial, relations. At the same time, Wallerstein’s and commercial improvement in France. use of plural temporalities allows him to The French state could neither be reformed integrate multiple levels of structure and nor promote reform in other sectors. Rather, agency into a single explanatory account. it became the source of ongoing fiscal crisis The long-term expansion of the world- that exacerbated France’s problems. The eco- economy creates the conditions for the trans- nomic upturn that began in the 1790s was formations of the eighteenth and nineteenth marked by global political, military, and centuries, but by itself is of limited explana- ideological conflict between the two powers, tory value. Consequently, Wallerstein focus- including the American, French, and Haitian es on the shorter-term economic and Revolutions. While the first mass anti-sys- political conjonctures that occur within the temic and anti-capitalist movements long-term movement. Such intermediate emerged from these struggles, the French cyclical movements form the immediate Revolution and Napoleonic Wars sealed contexts of social action, and their identifica- France’s defeat and secured British hegemo- tion enables Wallerstein to reconstruct the ny over the world-economy. diverse and changing relations through Historically, the world-economy is not which both agencies and events are formed. commensurate with the entire world or

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 Special Symposium 19 with ‘‘world trade.’’ Rather, it refers to defi- instance. He is thereby able to demonstrate nitely structured political economic relations how common systemic processes produced of historical capitalism. Geographical expan- distinct local histories. sion is a fundamental process of the econom- The final chapter demonstrates both Wal- ic and political expansion of the world lerstein’s insistence on historical social sci- system. In the third chapter, Wallerstein ence and his sophisticated conceptual treats the extension of the world-economy framework. Here he analyzes the decoloni- as a systemic process through an examina- zation of the Americas as an integral part tion of the simultaneous incorporation of of the expansion and transformation of the four separate regions: Africa, Russia, India, world-economy. After 1763, British domina- and the Ottoman Empire. He is concerned tion of the Atlantic was matched by commer- to demonstrate a common sequence of cial expansion in the Pacific and Indian linked systemic processes that are operative Oceans. At the same time, the French over- in each of these distinct economic, political, seas empire contracted. While this informal social, and cultural configurations. He delin- ‘‘second empire’’ served British interests, eates the historical movement of each from her North American colonists increasingly being an external arena, through incorpora- found themselves in conflict with the tion, to peripheralization. The concept of metropolis over trade, agricultural, and ‘‘external arena’’ does not refer to a region industrial policy, and most significantly that is merely outside the world-economy. over expansion on the frontier. Both Spain Rather, it designates a region that already and Portugal declined in relation to Britain has a relation to the world-economy, gener- and France. Each became caught up in the ally through trade, but is not part of the Anglo-French rivalry on the Continent, and world-economic division of labor. Such rela- each became more dependent on their colo- tions may condition incorporation and sys- nial empires as British maritime and com- temic expansion, but trade by itself is mercial power changed the balance of insufficient to constitute integration into forces. In South America, too, metropolitan the world-economy. The category of ‘‘incor- reform of colonial policies provoked anti- poration’’ serves to organize Wallerstein’s colonial sentiment. However, the subaltern analysis of the political and economic mech- revolts of Tupac Amaru and of the Comu- anisms through which such regions are neros defined the politics of race in Latin integrated into the commodity chains consti- America and confined the anti-colonial tuting the world-economy. Incorporation movement to the Creole elites who steered entails new patterns of production and a course between Spanish colonialism on trade, changes in economic organization the one hand and popular revolt on the oth- and more coercive forms of labor control. er. Within this matrix, decolonization played While Russia and the Ottoman Empire itself out in the years from the American retained political independence, India and Revolution, through the Haitian Revolution, Africa were being colonized. Significantly, the Peninsular Wars in Europe, to the final the Atlantic slave trade, which had played collapse of France in 1815. These events a significant role in Africa moving from opened the way for decolonization and being an external arena to being a peripheral national independence throughout the zone of the world-economy, was abolished Americas. Decolonization of the first periph- in the process of incorporation. ‘‘Peripheral- eral zones in the Americas coincided with ization’’ refers to the economic and political the incorporation and colonization of new subordination of these zones and their func- peripheral zones in Africa and Asia. With tional role within the world-economic divi- the exception of the slave revolution in Haiti sion of labor. Because his concept of world- and the failed revolution in Ireland, which economy is a construct for analyzing histor- initiated new anti-systemic movements, ical data rather than an explanatory theory, this first cycle of decolonization was the Wallerstein is able to integrate into his achievement of the European settler popula- explanatory framework the diverse forms tions of the Americas. The new republics these processes took and account for their express the specific position of the Americas varied causes and consequences in each in the world-economy, and they remain

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 20 Special Symposium distinct from the republican, democratic, or system determines everything. Indeed it liberal regimes of Europe. Their social com- has frequently been interpreted in this way. position would distinguish them from the However, this is a one-sided reading that second cycle of mass anti-colonial move- misses the perspective’s potential. The vol- ments of the twentieth century. ume under review here breaks with liberal Immanuel Wallerstein’s The Modern and Marxist narratives of capitalism, moder- World-System is a pioneering work that nity, and the rise of the bourgeoisie. There is opens up new horizons for research, gener- no single ‘‘prime mover,’’ whether econom- ates new problems, and elaborates new ic, political, social or cultural. Instead, this methods. At the same time, it is a difficult approach allows complex historically- work that proceeds not by constructing a his- grounded causal explanation within the tory, but by critiquing the categories of unifying framework of the capitalist world- existing historiography. For this reason it economy. Such an approach permits funda- seems as if the world-system approach mental rethinking of the forces that continue is an historicized version of Parsonian to shape the modern world. There is still structural-functionalism where the social much to learn from Wallerstein’s work.

Liberalism Triumphant—But Where is the World System?

MICHAEL MANN University of California, Los Angeles [email protected]

He is still going strong, the only social scien- tist who has produced a four-volume work The Modern World-System, Vol. IV: Centrist on world development—in his terms the Liberalism Triumphant, 1789–1914,by development of the ‘‘world system.’’ Immanuel Wallerstein. Berkeley, CA: Immanuel Wallerstein promises a fifth vol- University of California Press, 2011. ume soon, and a sixth, he says, ‘‘if I can 377pp. $26.95 paper. ISBN: 9780520267619. last it out.’’ I sincerely hope he does. What- ever criticisms I might have, it is always a pleasure to grapple with his ideas and to become the twin cores of world systems the- admire the amount and sensitive treatment ory in general. But this volume did not attri- of empirical research with which he backs bute rising British power primarily to the up his ideas. strength of its economy, but the strength of Volume I had the biggest impact on the its state, a significant departure from his social and historical sciences, extending our starting point. vistas well beyond the nation-state or even Volume III was a little quirky. Wallerstein the ‘‘advanced countries’’ onto the ‘‘world- attacked the very notion of the ‘‘industrial system,’’ which he said first emerged in the revolution.’’ It was not really revolutionary, fifteenth century. Volume I had a big impact he said. True, British economic growth was on me even though I resisted the economism only about one percent per annum though and functionalism I detected there. In Vol- the fact that this growth continued for most ume II, Wallerstein still emphasized the of a century certainly was revolutionary, power of the capitalist world-system but and so was the cumulative shift to urbanism added a considerable emphasis on geopoli- and industry from agriculture. Wallerstein tics, specifically on Dutch ‘‘hegemony’’ suc- also rejected both class and revisionist ceeded by Anglo-French rivalry. He noted accounts of the French Revolution, since two cycles in the world-system, one the sup- these focused on domestic causes and conse- posed 60-year Kondratieff economic cycles, quences. Again he emphasized geopolitical the other the slower-paced rise and fall of causes, that is, French defeat at the hands hegemonic Powers. These two have now of the British. In this he was largely correct,

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 Special Symposium 21 though others have argued that, too. He also ‘‘implementing the general will’’ (socialists). observed that there were few revolutionary He argues convincingly that all three groups consequences for France itself, as French his- only pretended to be against the state—that, torians have also been arguing. This volume for example, laissez-faire barely existed in also focused on capitalist/imperial expan- reality. sion across the globe as well as the first Yet he does not define ‘‘centrist liberal- phase of decolonization achieved by white ism,’’ except that, obviously, it is in the cen- settlers. This obviously remained a world- ter, between conservatism on the right and system for him, but it did not any longer socialism on the left, a golden mean between seem very economistic or functionalist. But reaction and revolution. But its reformism, he never really explained where geopolitics he says, was eventually accepted by both and political strength came from. the right and the left. For the right, fear of In Volume IV we see why he had spent so the threat coming from below from workers much time on the French Revolution. The forced them to embrace some reform— Revolution was important, he says, because though not, I note, for the sake of securing it led to general acceptance of two great individual rights. They believed reform ideas—the normalcy of political change was necessary to avoid revolution or chaos. and the irreversibility of popular sovereign- This was particularly true of the British ty. This in turn made what he calls ‘‘centrist Conservatives. As he notes, they and not liberalism’’ into the dominant ideology of the Liberals passed most of the progressive the nineteenth century, defeating its two legislation of the nineteenth century. For main rivals, conservatism and radicalism/ the left, reformism was embraced (though socialism, and ‘‘taming’’ them into adopting again not for the sake of individual rights) its basic principles. Thus centrist liberalism because, he says, working class movements became the dominant presence in what he were much too weak to try for revolution calls the ‘‘geoculture’’ of the nineteenth cen- and because workers were divided by skill tury world-system. But it was unexpected level, religion, ethnicity, and gender. It is that he would spend most of the volume dis- hard to argue with this in the cases of Britain cussing Britain and France, which he sees as and France, and indeed this is now conven- the main home of centrist liberalism, and tional wisdom among historians. Yet Waller- very little of it on the rest of the world. stein does provide a more comprehensive Germany, Russia, and the United States framework of analysis which is innovative have walk-on roles, the periphery appears as far as the taming of the conservatives is only as the audience. He promises more of concerned. He becomes even more original them in Volume V. It was also unexpected when he discusses ethnic and gender issues that he would focus overwhelmingly on and also the development of distinct social ideology and—after an initial burst of science disciplines in the nineteenth century geopolitics—on domestic politics in the two (in the second half of Chapter Four and in countries. Kondratieff cycles surface as occa- Chapter Five). Centrist liberals, he says, sional drivers of politics, but on the whole wanted to keep separate the three domains we have to take the world-system for of the market, the state and civil society, granted. The title and not the sub-title and they achieved this through the emer- describes the book. gence of the distinct disciplines of econom- We need to dig a little to find his definition ics, politics, and sociology. This is very of liberalism. At first he says it seeks to provocative. ‘‘achieve in due time the happiness of man- Centrist liberalism seems all-pervasive in kind as rationally as possible’’ (p. 11). But the book. He says that differences between so does socialism. So he adds that for this it all countries were trivial compared to the was necessary ‘‘to engage in conscious, con- overall dominance of centrist liberalism tinual, intelligent reformism’’ (p. 6) and also (pp. 179–81). This does not seem plausible that liberals saw the state as ‘‘creating the for Russia and Germany (where conserva- conditions permitting individual rights to tives dominated) nor Italy or Spain (with flourish’’ (p. 16) rather than as ‘‘protecting their patron-client versions of liberalism) traditional rights’’ (conservatives) or as nor the United States (liberal but not

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 22 Special Symposium centrist). Centrist liberalism, or reformism, Anglo-French hegemony, which is not the was eventually how the West was won, but usual world-systems view of the nineteenth not until after world wars, the Great Depres- century. But he does not really demonstrate sion, Keynesianism, and the triumph in that this was imposed on or accepted by some countries of social democracy (he much of the world. would presumably call this centrist All these arguments are backed up with liberalism). a wealth of empirical information. There He is very interesting on citizenship (in are the Wallerstein trademarks of many quo- the first half of Chapter Four). From the tations from other writers, lengthy footnotes, French Revolution onward, he says, formal and an enormous 78-page bibliography. But equality of citizenship was de rigueur but he has very few references to sociologists in substantive terms citizens were not in or political scientists, and almost none to fact equal and neither conservatives nor lib- works published in the twenty-first century. erals wanted them to be. Two anti-systemat- His references are overwhelmingly to histor- ic movements arose to contest this ians, mostly of earlier and older generations. inequality, social revolutionaries seeking Thus, for example, he does not refer to com- inclusion of the lower classes, and national parative sociological research emphasizing revolutionaries seeking equality for disprivi- national differences in labor movements, leged ethnicities, perhaps in their own state class structures, and states. Nor does he refer (though ethnic minorities are not much dis- to sociologists’ writings on citizenship from cussed). So in response, elites, including lib- T.H. Marshall to Rogers Brubaker and eral elites, sought to ‘‘freeze’’ inequalities beyond. among citizens, originally in the form of Overall, my main reservation is that he the class/gender division between ‘‘active’’ pins too much onto Britain and France and and ‘‘passive’’ citizens, then in forms of class onto liberalism. Though these two countries and gender franchise limitations, of discrim- did embody much liberalism, the liberal ination against ethnic minorities, and democratic/social democratic path of devel- between citizens and aliens. In all these opment did not dominate the West and parts cases, he says, each binary distinction of the Rest until much later. The Meiji Resto- tended to weaken collective anti-systemic ration was consolidated in this period with action, while the collective identity of the more borrowings from German corporate included group preceded that of the exclud- semi-authoritarianism than from British or ed group. Thus the bourgeoisie preceded the French liberalism, while ‘‘liberalism’’ in proletariat, white preceded black, Oriental, many countries, including Southern Europe- and others, masculinity preceded femininity, an ones, meant very different things. Second, and the citizen preceded the statuses of alien he does not pay enough attention to the gen- and immigrant. ‘‘Citizenship always exclud- eral tendencies of economic and political ed as much as it included,’’ he concludes (p. development and to the internal disagree- 217). Eventually centrist liberalism effected ments among liberalism’s rivals, especially compromise by conferring civil and political the socialists. Industrializing capitalism rights on these groups, while resisting socio- and urbanism brought the masses on stage economic equality. and gave them new powers at the level of The success of centrist liberalism, he says, the nation-state and beyond. That, rather was to achieve both a stable order and a long than the influence of liberals, was what upswing in the world economy. In turn this frightened both conservatives and liberals depended on three pillars, a ‘‘strong mar- into anticipatory reforms. That reformism ket,’’ a ‘‘strong state,’’ both exemplified by appeared to be getting the upper hand in Britain and France, and a ‘‘strong interstate working class movements by 1910 was not system’’ of which these countries were the due primarily to the power of liberalism core, and through which they were jointly but to the fact that collective action enabled able to impose their liberalism on the reformists to make gains while revolutionar- world-system—or rather the non-colonial ies could not. part of it (p. 111). Note again the importance My main disappointment, however, is that of geopolitics, but in this case it is a dual this volume is not about the development of

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 Special Symposium 23 the world system, not about center, semi- have come from many a talented historian. periphery, and periphery. Very little of This is an emperor in workaday clothing! I what he writes about Britain and France pre- hope that his next volume contains more supposes a world-system model. It could global finery.

A Liberal Leviathan: The Creation of the Strong State in Nineteenth Century Europe

GEORGE STEINMETZ University of Michigan [email protected]

In the long-awaited fourth volume of his path-breaking history of the modern The Modern World-System, Vol. IV: world-system, Immanuel Wallerstein focus- Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789- es on the creation of what he calls a universal 1914,byImmanuel Wallerstein. geoculture during the ‘‘‘long’ nineteenth Berkeley, CA: University of California century.’’ He defines the word ‘‘geoculture’’ Press, 2011. 376pp. $26.95 paper. ISBN: as ‘‘values that are very widely shared 9780520267619. throughout the world-system, both explicit- ly and latently’’ (p. 277). The earlier centu- ries had already produced capitalism, to speed it up, and liberals sought a moder- a global axial division of labor, and a system ate rate. Despite liberalism’s leftish begin- of core states vying for hegemony over the nings, ‘‘its destiny was to assert that it was emerging international political order. The located in the center’’ (p. 6). Both of the alter- French Revolution introduced two new fun- natives to liberalism were, Wallerstein damental cultural considerations into the argues, ultimately ‘‘tamed’’ by liberal cen- politics of the capitalist world-system: polit- trism. In that respect, centrist liberalism ical change was now seen as normal, and the became ‘‘the prevailing doctrine of the locus of political sovereignty was now world-system’s geoculture’’ (p. 277). believed to be located not with monarchs Liberalism decisively shaped three crucial but with ‘‘something much more elusive, spheres. The first was the construction of the ‘people’’’ (p. 1). These two momentous a strong and liberal state. The absolutist changes led to the emergence of ‘‘ideolo- states prior to the nineteenth century ‘‘had gies,’’ which Wallerstein defines as ‘‘political not been strong states’’ but ‘‘merely the scaf- metastrategies’’ aimed at reconciling the folding within which weak states sought to striving for expanded popular sovereignty become stronger’’ (p. 111). Strong states with the elites’ desire ‘‘to maintain them- were those with an ‘‘adequate bureaucratic selves in power and to ensure their continu- structure and a reasonable degree of popu- ing ability to accumulate capital endlessly’’ lar acquiescence.’’ And it was ‘‘only the lib- (ibid.). Three main ideologies developed in erals, who could construct such states in the nineteenth century, each one locating the core zones of the world-system’’ (pp. itself ‘‘in opposition to something else’’ (p. 111-112). Wallerstein spends little time dis- 11). The first was conservatism, in reaction cussing the first of these forms of ‘‘state to the French Revolution; then came liberal- strength’’ (bureaucracy) or any other dimen- ism, which began as a negation of conserva- sions of ‘‘infrastructural power’’ (Mann tism; last came socialism, which positioned 1988). He does discuss other aspects of itself as a rejection of liberalism. Each ideol- state-strengthening, such as the expansion ogy proposed a different definition of ‘‘the of the electoral suffrage, increased social pro- people’’ and the general will. Conservatives tection for workers, and the transformation of wanted to slow down the pace of now- banks into ‘‘key agents of national economic unavoidable social change, socialists tried development’’ during the nineteenth century

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(p. 108). However, Wallerstein’s discussion of economics, sociology, and political science these topics is limpid, summarizing decades before 1914, that is, up to the moment at of secondary literature in a few clear strokes. which these same fields became academic Linked to state strength was the creation university disciplines in the core countries. of a strong interstate system (p. 111). Waller- He also discusses the two main ‘‘others’’ of stein provides a concise overview of some of these ‘‘nomothetic’’ social sciences: history, the key episodes in the British-dominated an idiographic discipline opposed to lawlike international system, detailing the geopoliti- generalizations but put to the service of cal entente cordiale between Britain and its national identity formation in the nineteenth defeated French rival. These episodes century, and anthropology and Orientalism, included helping the Belgian, Greek, and which were focused on the nonwestern Other. Polish uprisings in order to weaken the Otto- The usual criticism of world-system theo- mans, Austrians, and Russians, which made ry is its ‘‘economic reductionism.’’ I feel that the year 1830 into a ‘‘watershed in the histo- this critique is off-base, at least for the cur- ry of European diplomacy’’ (p. 69). Britain rent volume, which is resolutely focused on and France also cooperated in keeping the other levels—mainly politics. Even in the peripheries open for trade through a mixture previous volumes, Wallerstein’s accounts of of formal colonialism and informal domina- struggles among great powers over who tion (p. 121). The two powers were able to set would become the next hegemon often left their own pace in their patterns of colonial room for overdetermination, accidents, and acquisition until the Crimean War and Fran- intentionality. Arguments for economic ce’s ‘‘American Crimea’’ in Mexico. By the determination of politics or culture are quite 1880s, at the latest, all of the other major rare in Centrist Liberalism Triumphant. Some powers had become free to ‘‘scramble’’ in of the economic explanatory factors are of the carving up of Africa as well as the Pacific course lurking sotto voce in the background. and other zones. Kondratieff cycles finally show up on page The second signal change imposed by cen- 96, for example, and reappear periodically trist liberalism, Wallerstein argues, was its after that. But one has been told in the intro- attempt to transform the French Revolution- duction that the author will not reintroduce ary concept of ‘‘citizen’’ into a category of concepts that he discussed in earlier vol- exclusion rather than inclusion. This point umes. What is sometimes difficult to deter- is illustrated through incisive discussions mine is whether these more economic of the exclusion of women, workers, and eth- concepts are always humming in the nic/racial ‘‘minorities.’’ background—that is, whether they are sup- The third change is liberalism’s support posed to be taken for granted. for the development of the historical social If there is reductionism in this book, then sciences. This discussion connects Waller- it is the risk of a reductio ad politicum. Most stein’s Modern World-System to the work he political decisions and cultural changes are has been doing on ‘‘unthinking’’ and ‘‘open- traced to strategizing in the international ing’’ the social sciences (Wallerstein 1991; political system. Here we have a whiff of Gulbenkian 1997). Here too the key role of Kenneth Waltz rather than Karl Marx. This liberal centrism guides the analysis, and sense of political reductionism is reinforced nineteenth century social science is by the fact that every major nineteenth-cen- explained mainly as a containment strategy. tury event is argued, somewhat relentlessly, Liberalism made a social science of change to strengthen centrist liberalism—at least necessary to preserve elite power. The link- until the spell breaks around the 1860s and age of social science to reform was not anti- things start to go wrong for Britain and thetical to the rise of the professionalization France. of social science and the calls for ‘‘value- Compounding the problem of this politi- freedom’’ and ‘‘objectivity’’; instead, this cism is the absence of an actual theory of pol- was a move away from the practice of direct itics or culture, the two central arenas of partisanship to indirect scientific influence investigation. Activities like social science, on policymaking through expert advice. culture, and even the state, cannot be under- Wallerstein deals deftly with the creation of stood without analyzing them as fields of

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 Special Symposium 25 difference: fields in which some of the actors But just as the main lines of modern colonial- are more influential and powerful than ism had already been laid down before others, and in which some of the actors are WWI, the opposite is true of the academic more autonomous than others, with more dis- social sciences—which are included here. tance from the influence and demands of For instance, Wallerstein presents a truncat- external politics and economics. Without ed view of the discipline of sociology, as a model of cultural and political practices, always fashioning itself as a nomothetic sci- the danger of turning both into reflections ence. This is accuratre even for Germany in of another external power, be it the state, the late nineteenth century, as he shows, political strategy, or capitalism, is always but that situation was reversed in the Wei- lurking. Having myself suffered from this mar Republic. When the first German sociol- malady of reducing science, politics, ideol- ogy professorships were created after 1918, ogy, and culture to dependent ‘‘superstruc- they were located in universities’ divisions tures’’ I am aware of its allure (‘‘enjoy your of Philosophy, Cultural Science, or Geistes- symptom’’), but I have also been chastened wissenschaften (e.g., at Berlin, Leipizig, Hei- by social scientists and philosophers for delberg, and Braunschweig). Even today resorting to this shortcut. there are entire national fields of sociology An example of this reductio is Wallerstein’s not dominated by scientism or positivism analysis of social science positivism as the (see Abend 2006 on Mexico). product of liberal political culture. If this is There is nothing at all wrong with overde- correct, how can we explain this epistemol- termined, multicausal explanations; in fact, ogy’s dogged persistence in American soci- they are almost always more appropriate in ology long after the end of centrist the human sciences. By introducing alterna- liberalism (Steinmetz 2005)? Or, if we tive determinants at different points in the assume that centrist liberalism is still domi- text, Wallerstein leaves his readers with no nant today, why are most of the leading Brit- idea whether they should substitute the ish and French sociologists not imbued with new account for the old one or combine this scientism? them. Wallerstein discusses Romanticism There are also some problems with peri- at two different points in the book. Initially odization. Wallerstein explains in the preface he discusses Romanticism as a product that he decided to leave out processes that of political culture (pp. 50-57). Later in were not complete, or whose main lines the book he describes Romanticism as had not been laid down, before 1914. But a response to ‘‘scorn by the natural sciences modern colonialism and modern social sci- of all that was literary and metaphysical’’ ence are treated contradictorily. With respect (p. 225). to the former, Wallerstein argues that ‘‘one Centrist Liberalism Triumphant is a master- could not reasonably tell’’ the story of the piece that should be read not only by sociol- scramble for Africa as though it ‘‘ended ogists but by others well beyond sociology. somehow in 1914’’ (p. xvii). It is of course Part of a series of books, Centrist Liberalism true that modern colonialism spans the nine- Triumphant is not the culmination of it: Wal- teenth and twentieth centuries. But most of lerstein promises a fifth volume on the peri- the crucial decisions had already been od 1873-1968/89 and even suggests the made before 1914: Africa had already been possibility of a sixth volume on the current partitioned, the difference between indirect structural crisis of capitalism. This book and direct forms of native policy had already presents an analysis of historical change crystallized, twentieth-century type social and the importance of the sovereignty of policies had already been introduced in the the people. Wallerstein himself has changed German colonies as legitimatory devices in his analytic approach over time, foreground- 1907, and anticolonial movements and ing politics and culture, and he has pre- wars were already ubiquitous before WWI. sented a sovereign grasp of the histories he Of course, Wallerstein promises to return studies. Reading this book I was intrigued to the ‘‘scramble’’ period in his next volume, by the foregrounding of the political, and I and including it here would have consider- am looking forward to Volumes Five and ably lengthened this already weighty tome. Six to see in hindsight the articulation of

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 26 Special Symposium the economic, political, and cultural levels of Mann, Michael. 1988. States, War and Capitalism, analysis. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Steinmetz, George. 2005. ‘‘Scientific Authority and the Transition to Post-Fordism: The Plau- sibility of Positivism in American Sociology References since 1945.’’ Pp. 275-323 in The Politics of Meth- Abend, Gabriel. 2006. ‘‘Styles of Sociological od in the Human Sciences: Positivism and its Epis- Thought: Sociologies, Epistemologies, and temological Others, edited by George Steinmetz. the Mexican and U.S. Quests for Truth.’’ Socio- Durham, NC: Duke University Press. logical Theory 24(1):1-41. Wallerstein, Immanuel,. 1976. ‘‘The Three Stages Bourdieu, Pierre. 1999. ‘‘Rethinking the State: of African Involvement in the World-Econo- Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic my,’’ Pp. 30-57 in Peter C. W. Gutkind and Field.’’ Pp. 53-75 in George Steinmetz (ed.), Immanuel Wallerstein, eds., The Political Econ- State/Culture: State Formation after the Cultu- omy of Contemprorary Africa, Vol. I. Beverly ral Turn. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Hills, CA: Sage. Press. ———. 1991. Unthinking Social Science: The Limits Gulbenkian Commission. 1997. Open the Social Sci- of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms. Cambridge, ences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. MA: Basil Blackwell.

‘‘Field of Forces’’ and World Culture

ARTHUR L. STINCHCOMBE Northwestern University [email protected]

This book of essays tries to put cultural changes in various places and times into an Immanuel Wallerstein and the Problem of analysis of worldwide ‘‘fields of forces,’’ the World: System, Scale, Culture, edited producing rigidity or change differently by David Palumbo-Liu, Bruce located in time and place. Both the forces Robbins, and Nirvana Tanoukhi. and the cultural outcomes in such models Durham, NC: Duke University Press, are often fuzzy, and in these essays as well 2011. 263pp. $23.95 paper. ISBN: as the other theories of this kind, concrete 9780822348481. groups of people, dated times of growth and decay of particular forces and outcomes, places where the mechanisms indeed how world greenhouse gases affect strato- changed cultures or cultures changed forces, spheric jet streams, and polar ice melting, are almost all foggy. (For space reasons I will and so creates melted polar water that use ‘‘ws’’ for ‘‘world system.’’) absorbs rather than reflects solar radiant The book divides into five approximately energy, all making the polar vortex unstable, equal subjects: (1) general intellectual history so that Chicago has more thunderstorms. It of academic thought on world history, all sounds sort of convincing, but concrete- emphasizing its relation to the ws, (2) general ness is scattered and unconvincing—vortex history the of the ws becoming more a system and lightning in local clouds from melted through many kinds of interdependence, ice a thousand miles away? (Similarly, mostly since the sixteenth century, (3) varie- a detective paperback with a lesbian detec- ties of concepts of the ws in political econo- tive but a conventional amount of violence my, geography, and literature, (4) values in the plot, as women have more police intertwined with the ws and their relations careers in Europe and the Americas—this to disciplines of the humanities, such as is my concreteness, more than we find in ethics, oppression, and (5) bibliography and most of the essays?) Does the displaced vor- organization of the book, index, and so on. tex produce the lightning near where we Such frustrations of ‘‘field’’ analysis fuzz- reckon, by counting seconds for the thunder iness here are analogous to the fuzziness of after the flash? Or do Frantz Fanon’s (p. 203)

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 18, 2012 Special Symposium 27 revolutionary attacks in writings on the rac- Bourdieu has concrete physics professors in ist effects of French imperialism apply the same upper left of his distinction graph equally to Stalin’s ethnic cleansing, sending as the well-tempered clavier, while the Chechens to Siberia during World War II? mechanical engineers with the same physics Or was it loosely the same forces, except equations in their profession are closer to with Soviet ‘‘state capitalism’’ running the businessmen and the Blue Danube. Then in imperialism? There is no hint here on how the ethnographic distinction extension of we might approach the question, except per- the dynamics to the ethnography of children haps that Fanon wrote in a language West of the physics professor and other such Europeans then could read; but we writers educated elites, some of whom do not of English-language cultural essays learned make it to a professorship, we find a subcul- French but did not learn to read Chechen, ture of arts and crafts and protest-laden and Stalin did not let them publish anyway. music—artsy and intellectual without Writings in languages few foreigners read upper-class dignity. The concrete culture is are perhaps less forceful in shaping the there to change with distinction of the low world cultural fields. income of the adolescents, but to carry cul- The field-of-forces theorists mentioned tural elements also in the family line. Such more than once in these essays include elegant workman-like pictures of concrete Immanuel Wallerstein and Pierre Bourdieu. field forces creating cultural actions are But Wallerstein’s examples of world-wide very scarce here, though Helen Stacy’s field effect does the work in the sources to essay, ‘‘The Legal System of International document the increasing size and number Human Rights,’’ has some. of Dutch trading vessels carrying grains in Overall, these essays seem to me to be on the Baltic, then causing Polish agricultural a fruitful intellectual branch, but not ripe workers to have longer unpaid hours owed with concrete fruit yet. They are a good to the newly capitalist Herren. Such fully source of vague ideas to be provided with developed concreteness pervades his work the elegant concreteness of younger Waller- spottily, giving periodic views of concrete steins and Bourdieus, along with unstable capitalism and concrete exploitation. Pierre polar vortexes.

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