Description: Two sociologists compare the modern global world-system with earlier regional intersocietal systems. Chase-Dunn and Hall propose an evolutionary theory that explains how myriad small-scale systems became unified into a single global system over the last ten thousand years. They focus on semiperipheral societies as agents of expansion and transformation of political structures and economic networksand suggest how basic transformation might occur in the future. Part of the New Perspectives in Sociology series.
