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World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-04-20T19:55:52Z

Emeehan: Removed an extra letter. Specifically an 'a'

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series = a John Hope Franklin Center Book
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The Modern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague. Wallerstein argues that the capitalist modern world system originated around 1650, and that the system is reaching limits which will bring about a crisis which will resolve in the creation of a new world-system.
==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

==The Modern World-System==

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view a world-system is defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized <abbr title="Its all about the Benjamins">"endless accumulation of capital,"</abbr> and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally; one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==The Path Forward==
The final chapter of the book, or the first depending upon what order the reader selects, looks critically at the modern world-system. Wallerstein sees the current system reaching asymptotic limits which include urbanization, resource consumption, and waste generation. He predicts a transition period marked by instability and increased violence as people continue to seek to benefit from the extant system while simultaneously pushing it inexorably towards its limits.
==Sources Cited==


[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]

[[Category: Global History]]

[[Category:Immanuel Wallerstein]]

[[Category: Book Summaries]]

User:Nidhika

2017-03-08T12:12:51Z

Emeehan: Edited to remove excess processed meat product.

User:Arpitavohra07

2017-03-08T12:12:09Z

Emeehan: Oh the spamanity!!

Beyond Compare

2017-02-28T22:10:10Z

Emeehan:

'''Seigel, Micol."Beyond Compare: Historical Method after the Transnational Turn," ''Radical History Review'' 91, 62-90, Winter 2005.'''

The transnational turn in history over the past few decades served to undermine tropes of American exceptionalism but also methodologies that undergirded numerous histories of previous areas. For Micol Siegel, the comparative method, long problematic, no longer provides a feasible way to pursue historical inquiry. Finding inspiration in the anti-colonial/post colonial struggles/intellectuals [thing Franz Fanon], Siegel argues “that this body of thought contains an implicit critique of comparative method.” (62) For Seigel, comparative histories bent under “overtly political comparisons that have helped produce the very notions, subjects and experience of national difference that in turn attract further comparative study.” (63)

The recent proliferation of transnational works should not lead one to conclude that the field only recently emerged. Instead, fueled by the anti-colonial fervor and its global “webs of resistance movments” illustrated the “metropole’s” dependence on its colonies, a relationship believed to uni-directional found itself challenged by an interdependent reality. The work of anti and post colonial intellectuals crystallized around such issues as many enacted a daily existence on the transnational level often living, writing, learning in first world cities. This creation of identities and knowledge served to displace the centrality of the nation-state in historical inquiry, “it posits social definition as a boundary setting process that ties identity categories together in the specular play of subject-formation familiar to scholars in many fields.” (64). Comparison’s focus on the international, often the centrality of the nation-state, appears to miss key aspects of transnational movements. The benefits of the transnational focus includes seeing through the myopia of borders, seeing the diversity within “monolithic groups”, and the “multivalent conversations and negotiations in any human interaction, even those distorted by gross inequalities.” (65). Thomas Bender might suggest this approach adds a “thickening” to our understanding of history. Comparison, even when wielded as dissent, unwittingly reinforced American exceptionalism, witness the efforts of the cold war era consensus moment. Comparative history struggles to locate truly equivalent examples, hence, reifying the difference that has been used for centuries in western discourse to separate the “West and the Rest”. Ultimately, the comparative method obscures as much as it reveals, wiping away historical processes replacing them with “difference” or as Siegel argues “comparisons are empty vessels, waiting for readers to endow them with meaning.” (71)

Historical works comparing Brazil and the United States’ respective race relations serve as central example of the comparative method’s inherent weaknesses. Comparative methods may wish to deconstruct race, gender or national difference but by focusing on those very subjects they perform a reification, reinforcing their influence. For example, utilizing Roosevelt’s presidency as one moment in which this comparison illustrates this dynamic, Siegel notes “the contrast between racial harmony in Brazil and purity in the United States helped explain and defend exceptionalisms on both sides: U.S. civilization, modernity, industry, practicality, and progress, and Brazilian cordiality, shortsightedness, sensuality, passivity chaos, and the masses’ need for discipline. Brazil-United States comparisons served to prove Jim Crow segregation appropriate and necessary in North American contexts, and to validate proposals for the whitening of Brazil.” (71) A later example reveals that debates between white supremacists and anti-racists of the 1920’s rested on shared assumptions of racial purity that promoted racial essentialism., “Positioning U.S. purity and Brazilian mixture at the furthest ends of the possible restricted the entire scale to an essentialized, biological definition of race.” (73) Moreover, as comparisons suggest a one to one juxtaposition, they reinforce binaries as the previous episode reveals, racial thought limited itself to ideas of blackness and whiteness but little else, while also “imparting the racial landscape they describe to the entire nation.” (74) When evidence of growing diasporic identies emerged, the threat of such developments caused some writers such as E. Franklin Frazier to limit its “radical suggestions in comparative frames.” (75)

The transnational turn for Brazilian history peeled away the ideological curtain that suggested Brazil had solved its racial issues, that Afro-Brazilians always enjoyed equal citizenship. Racial democracy serves as another outgrowth of the transnational development, “racial democracy is a concept forged in transnational and comparative context, and one deeply influential in the United States.” (76) [ this is a point I believe Robin Kelley also makes … makes sense when you think about relational identity i.e. Chicano movement’s appropriation of third world solidarities, Vietnam etc.] Twenty first century comparisons that have flipped the old argument of Brazilian racial unity contrasting with America’s virulent racism into the reverse such that the U.S. now looks southward believing it to be more racially tolerant. This anti-racist rhetoric, reinforced through the comparative method obscures a much more complex and nuanced present, while erasing a painful history of racial conflict.

[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Category:Micol Siegel]]
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[[Category:Article Summaries]]

Gender: A Useful Category of Analysis

2017-02-28T22:09:42Z

Emeehan:

'''Scott, Joan W. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” ''The American Historical Review'' 91, no. 5 (December 1, 1986): 1053–1075.'''
[[File:Joan_Wallach_Scott_and_Kristen_R._Ghodsee.jpg|thumbnail|Ethnographer Kristen Ghodsee and Historian Joan Scott]]

<blockquote>“Joan Hoff …. accused postructuralists gender historians, and Scott in particular, of nihilism, presentism, ahistoricism, obfuscation, elitism, obeisance to partriarchy, ethnocentrism, irrelevance, and possibly racism.”
— Joanne Meyerwitz in "A History of "Gender"" - AHR, 113:5, 2008</blockquote>

Joan Scott’s 1986 AHR contribution “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis” ignited a nearly twenty year debate over the role of gender as an analytical category for historical inquiry and the role of women’s history more generally. Prominent among late 20th century French academics, Scott harnessed poststructuralist theory, Foucualdian visions of power and gender, and literary criticism, challenging historians to reconsider their understanding of “the sexes, of gender groups in the historical past. Our goal is to discover the range in sex roles and in sexual symbolism in different societies and periods to find out what meaning they had and how they functioned to maintain the social order or to promote its change.”

According to Scott, “Feminist historians” remained more comfortable with “descriptions than theory.” This creates problems since description requires “synthesis … to explain continuities and discontinuities, account for inequalities and differing social experiences of actors.” Moreover, it fails to “address dominant disciplinary concepts, or at least that do not address these concepts in terms that can shake their power and transform them.” Advocating a more theoretical approach to the study of women, men, and gender, Scott bemoaned the lack of theoretical choices available to feminist scholars. Trapped between three basic positions , Scott explores the limitations of each: theories of patriarchy fail to illustrate “”how gender inequality structures all other inequalities … the analysis rests on physical difference”, Marxists force “material explanations” on gender, while object theorists fail to connect gender to “other social systems.”

Instead, Scott suggested “we need to scrutinize our methods of analysis, clarify our operative assumptions, and explain how we think change occurs. Instead of a search for single origins, we have to conceive of processes so interconnected they cannot be untangled.” so that gender not only illuminates meanings around masculinity/feminity, sexuality, and the differences between the sexes but signifies “relationships of power.” In this way, gender serves as a useful tool to “decode meaning and to understand complex connections among various forms of human interaction.” Thus, Scott’s provocation invited historians to step outside traditional methods of analysis and jargon while reimagining gender as a category. Scott hoped her missive might lead to a deconstruction of fixity concerning ideas like male/female, masculine/feminine, and sexuality, while simultaneously placing it within the context of broader societal institutions and organizations, unveiling power structures connected to race, class, and ethnicity.

Following Scott’s article, historians embraced gender as a category of analysis, but not necessarily in ways the author intended. Joanne Meyerwitz (“A History of “Gender””, American Historical Review 113:5, 2008) noted such developments in her article “A History of “Gender”” as historians ventured “into new territory … they brought race, sexuality, and nationality as equally useful categories of historical analysis, and they borrowed from postcolonial, critical race, queer and political theory.” However, as Scott recently acknowledged, her article had not eliminated fixed ideas concerning gender, instead, for Scott gender had been reduced to a binary which “most often refers to sexual difference, to an enduring male/female opposition, a normatively … heterosexual coupling, even when homosexuality is the topic being addressed.” Adjusting her demands, Scott submitted “that no history of women is complete without a history of “women”. “Gender” was a call to disrupt the powerful pull of biology by opening every aspect of sexed identity to interrogation….” However, even with numerous reservations Scott maintained that though gender could not be codified by any dictionary, “gender is an open question about how these meanings are established, what they signify, and in what contexts, it remains a useful category of analysis.”

Still, just as gender itself exists in relation to various systems, languages, and institutions, Scott’s work does not reside in a vacuum. “Gender” arrived just as the field of history underwent methodological turmoil as many historians began to shift their attentions from social to cultural history, “from the study of demography, experiences, and social movements of the oppressed and stigmatized groups to the study of representations, language, perception, and discourse.” Thus, despite Scott’s own reservations about gender and women’s history, as Meyerwitz points out, Scott bridged the “gap between the feminist social scientists who critiqued “gender” and “gender roles” and the feminist literary critics who deconstructed textual representations of sex difference.” Parallel developments in race toward the study of whiteness or ethnicity and the construction of national identity benefitted indirectly from Scott’s exhortions and she from theirs.

Resistance to Scott’s ideas emerged visibly in the 23 years since “Gender’s” initial publication. Most notably, Joan Hoff (“Gender as a Postmodern Category of Paralysis”, Women Studies International Forum, 17:4) suggested that Scott’s dependence on poststructuralists and postmodernism illustrated a flawed understanding of history. Postmodern thought obliterates historical discourse while, many of the poststructuralists that Scott noted suffered from “misogynistic” beliefs that naturally undercut attempt at excavating the role of women in history. Even Foucault, Hoff argues “talked extensively about gender, but largely neglected to mention women.” Rather than freeing historians, Hoff argued Scott’s approach amounted to “paralysis”. Finally, Hoff issued a professional critique of Scott and others of her generation, arguing that the shift to gender was a dodge since Hoff’s cohort and their collective experiences were “threatening to younger scholars.” Accordingly, Scott’s provocation served as tool to negate Hoff and others while simultaneously “asserting their professional identity and right to career advancement in a tighter and more demanding marketplace, many of them chose a methodology and theory that rejected both our experiences and memories of those experiences.”

== External Links ==
*[http://www.jstor.org/stable/1864376 Joan W. Scott - Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis]

[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Category:Joan Scott]]
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[[Category:Article Summaries]]

Culture and Imperialism

2017-02-28T22:09:24Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = Culture and Imperialism
| author = Edward W. Said
| publisher = Vintage
| pub_date = May 31, 1994
| pages = 380
| isbn = 0679750541
| image = [[File:Culture and Imperialism.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}
Edward Said’s seminal work [[Orientalism]] took Western historians and academics to task for constructing an essentialized view of the Asian and the Middle East, further arguing Western representations of the East revealed more about Western culture than those outside of Europe and the Americas. Traversing similar terrain, Said’s Culture and Imperialism explores the role of “culture” (as Said seems to define it through literary works, art and music) in the imperial project and culture’s connections globally. Focusing on the Western Empires of the nineteenth and twentieth century (more specifically those of the US, Britain and France) and their cultural productions , Said notes that too few scholars have paid close attention to “the privileged role of culture in the modern imperial experience” noting that its “global reach” continues to “cast a shadow over our own times.” (12)

Much like Arjun Appadurai, Jeremy Prestholdt, and to a lesser extent David Harvey, Said attempts to illuminate obscured relationships between imperialism and its colonies taking note of imperialism’s obscured presence in the domestic culture of imperializing nations. Said’s literary examples include Thomas Hardy, Albert Camus, and Chalers Dickens among others. Utilizing examples such as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Said illustrates the implicit connections between European protagonists and Europe itself to Asia , Middle East, and the Caribbean. For example, Jane Austen’s protagonists depend on Antigua for their economic livelihood, a dependency often presented by the text as peripheral. Heart of Darkness’ Marlowe simultaneously reinforces ideas about non whites and Africa while also expressing a deep skepticism about the project of imperialism itself. Said suggests that the “great texts” of European and American culture must be reexamined such that scholars “give emphasis and voice to what is silent or marginally represented.” (66) In addition, Accordingly, the metropole/periphery formation cast subjectivities on the Middle East and Asia as well as other realms of empire, as places younger Europeans went to “sow their oats”, a wild adventure among irrational non-western peoples.

Paying close attention to “cultural resistance” as another way of viewing history, Said explores the works of CLR James, George Antonius, Salmon Rushdie, and Franz Fanon among others. As Said acknowledges, “the post imperial writers of the Third World … bear their past within them”, meaning their works continue to exhibit a connection to imperialism well after its “official” political collapse. However, Said carefully distinguishes earlier writers such as CLR James whose work explore imperialism and its connections more broadly from more recent such as Ranajit Guha who focuses more exclusively on cultural productions emanating from imperialism or post-colonial networks of authority. Some of this difference rests on the note the shift between “the terrain of nationalist independence to the theoretical domain of liberation,.”(268) which Said argues historians ignore at our own peril.

Still, not all cultural resistance pleases Said. Efforts to rightly resist imperialism sometimes fall back on an essentializing nationalism that morphs into nativism negating politics and history. Again, like Appadurai, Said raises concerns about the role of media in reifying and inscribing negative images about Asia and the Middle East while also marginalizing the experiences of such peoples by only giving historical context when geopolitical conflict erupts.

Said’s work illustrates the point that literature and culture are not confined to the nation state. Uncovering imperialism’s “structure of attitude and reference” which partakes of “racial superiority as much as of artistic brilliance, or political as of technical authority, of simplifying reductive as of complex techniques” (112), Culture and Imperialism contends the imperial nations and those subjected to their rule remain interconnected. Critics might point to Said’s failure to explore literature from the very people Said argues Western works obscure or essentialize. Chinu Achebe’s work Things Fall Apart or Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood serve as obvious examples worth analysis. Moreover, the dominant focus on works of literature limits the argument to higher level cultural production, failing to account more popular forms. Finally, in terms of accessibility, should the reader lack Said’s eruditeness, much of the argument proves elusive.
[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]

[[Category:Edward Said]]

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[[Category:Book Summaries]]

The Culture of Time and Space

2017-02-28T22:09:09Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918
| author = Stephen Kern
| publisher = Harvard University Press
| pub_date = November 30, 2003
| pages = 416
| isbn = 067402169X
| image = [[File:The Culture of Time and Space.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}
Review 1:

Abstract ideas such as time and space serve as crucial characters in Stephen Kern’s intellectual history The Culture of Time and Space 1880-1918. The collapse of space, the imposition of time, the destruction of form, and the rapidly increasing importance of the present due to technological advance drove intellectual thought, art, literature and even war in the first decades of the long twentieth century. Kern’s work argues that essential human understandings regarding time, space, direction, and form were radically transformed by technological innovations such as the telegraph, telephone, railroad, automobile and cinema which undermined traditional hierarchies throughout society.

Kern divides his attentions between the abstracts of time and space but divides them between the past, present, the future, speed, form, distance and direction. Moreover, Kern employs the work and ideas of intellectuals/writers/artists such as James Joyce, Emile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, William Carlos Williams and Henrik Ibsen, employing “conceptual distance” to determine the pervasiveness of a belief or idea, “I assume that any generalization about the thinking of an age is the more persuasive the greater the conceptual distance between the sources on which it is based.” (7) Beginning with time, Kern outlines how the implementation of Standard Time set off a countercurrent that rejected a single monolithic time for the idea of “private time” which was fluid, multiple, and constantly in flux. The concept of ‘simultaneity” emerged among artists and others suggesting that the present was not “a sequence of single local events … [but] a simultaneity of multiple distant events.”(68) Simultaneity depended on “private time” which emphasized the present, reorienting humanity’s relation to the past and future. Ideas of the past and future remained similar to those of earlier eras but the past took on increased importance regarding the present and what came after. Stream of consciousness writing represented the importance of the present such that a single moment in thought, as evidenced by Joyce’s work, might traverse numerous periods and spaces, making individual’s private time transhistorical and potentially transnational.

Though new constructions of time suggesting pluralities and the importance of reference reverberated, the alteration of humanity’s spatiality mattered equally if not more. In terms of transportation, railroads, airplanes, cars and bicycles collapsed physical space, reorienting nations’ ideas of themselves and others. Simultaneously, the telephone, telegraph, and cinema made information nearly instantaneous, surprising, and broad. Additionally, these innovations collapsed spaces more abstractly such as with the cinematic technique of the close up which engaged the audience more directly creating shared intimacy between actor and audience and between audience members. In the world of art, the “affirmation of positive negative space” struck down artistic traditions and hierarchies just as the cinema brought numerous classes in public space together. As with time, concepts such as the plurality of space, “affirmation of negative space”, perspectivism, and the restructuring of forms undermined traditional hierarchies paralleling the collapse of aristocracies and the rise of the bourgeoisie.

Bravely, Kern applies his arguments to the July Crisis and World War I itself arguing that many of the new developments regarding time and space contributed to its outbreak and execution. For example, the speed of communication confounded diplomacy used to deliberative slow negotiative accretions leading to rash decisions by rulers, legislators, and peoples to enter war. Similarly, the imperialistic drive that fueled competition and militarization between European powers arose because of nationalistic beliefs partially shaped by innovations in transportation (and the resulting changes in how people conceived space) that nations needed greater and greater amounts of territory. Small nations or stagnant ones represented sickness and decay, while expanding imperial powers gobbled up space like a healthy individual.

The Culture of Time and Space effectively traces intellectual developments that transformed humanity’s ideas concerning spatiality and temporality. However, Kern’s focus on writers/artists/intellectuals neglects more common voices increasing the difficulty of determining the pervasiveness of such cultural developments. Similarly, though concepts such as “private time” implicitly grant agency to average people, Kern rarely illustrates this outside of examples from literature. Finally, Kern ignores issues of race and ethnicity despite trumpeting the spread of democratization as result of new conceptual developments.

Review 2:

Stephen Kern shows us how traditional Enlightenment conceptions of time and space were radically altered at the end of the nineteenth century. Using examples from art, literature, science, philosophy, psychology, technology and political developments he illustrates how the fin-de-siècle witnessed a broad “assault on a universal, unchanging, and irreversible public time” that in turn challenged “traditional notions about the nature of the world and man’s place in it” (314). Essentially, because of these changes in perceptions of space and time, hierarchies of power were destroyed and recreated in very specific ways. Kern organizes his chapters around the subthemes of time – past, present, future, and space – form, distance, and direction.

For example, in his discussion of space, Kern uses the case of Impressionist art to explain that artists like Monet were more interested in the “dissolving of form” (195) and the interplay of light and space than the physical building (in this case, the Rouen cathedral) that was the more obvious subject of the piece. For the Impressionists, the “shape of a space” became more significant than the shape of the object (161). Kern connects this to larger social and political developments within ideas of spatiality, pointing out that Frederick Jackson Turner and others were very concerned about the relationship between space and national power. As Kern puts it, “The challenge of this generation to the notion that the subject was more important than the background spread in ever widening circles…” (177). One consequence was that people perceived national boundaries as porous, which led to developments leading up to the First World War. He connects how developments in Cubist art can be compared to the techniques employed during the war such as camouflage, where the goal was to distort the distinction between nature and military object.

Kern also connects his discussions of time and space to larger ideas such as the blurring of private and public spheres (188), showing how changes in psychology and the law grappled with people’s anxiety over the “penetration of the private world by outside forces” (190). The culminating event for these changes was the First World War, when people had trouble reconciling the violence that seemed age-old and also new, with a world that seemed to have so much technological and scientific promise. He writes, “War creates a surrealistic sense of history that comes from confrontation with the grotesque newness of everything…In four years the belief in evolution, progress and history itself was wiped out as Eurpoeans were separated from the ‘pre-historic days’ of the prewar years by the violence of war” (291). Overall, Kern highlights the profound sense of disjuncture that affected nearly every aspect of life at the fin-de-siècle. The sense of brokenness and isolation that pervaded society and culture had interesting effects on everything from the idea of anarchy to architectural forms.

[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Category:Media Studies]]
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[[Category:Book Summaries]]

Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

2017-02-28T22:08:43Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
| author = Fredric Jameson
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 1990
| pages = 461
| isbn = 0822310902
| image = [[File:Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}
Frederic Jameson’s 1984 work Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism explores the meaning and nature of Postmodernism. Jameson appears to be on the whole, critical of its end result yet understanding that what it was meant to define proves difficult to articulate in one simple term, “but when I am tempted to regret my complicity with it, to deplore its misuses and its notoriety, and to conclude with some reluctance that it raises more problems than it solves, I find myself pausing to wonder whether any concept can dramatize the issues in quiet so effective and economical as fashion.” (418) In some ways , this quote alone illustrates one of the largest weaknesses of this work, Jameson’s repeated verbage and self satisfied tone overwhelms the reader as he routinely extends sentences by numerous lines when they could be summarized for more succinctly. Moreover, the work exudes a jargon filled explanation of postmodernism, its fracturedness (though Jameson also points out this label for postmodernism is somewhat lazy), its commodization, its exclusion of nature, and its rejection of modernism. Nonetheless, the work remains widely respected as such its arguments deserve attention.

First, Jameson expands postmodernism’s significance to more than a style, referring to is as a “cultural dominant”, and not necessarily a wholly new one either, “postmodernism is not the cultural dominant of a wholly new social order …. But only the reflex and the concomitant of yet another systematic modification of capitalism itself.” (xii). Postmodernism’s success penetrating society such that it is very likely the term is overused , “The success story of the word postmodernism demands to be written, no doubt in best seller format; such lexical neoevents, in which the coinage of a neologism has all the reality impact of a corporate merger, are among the novelties of media society which require not merely study but eh establishment of a whole new media lexicological subdiscipline.” (xiii). Uh huh. Ultimately, he accepts its usage but wishes everyone think about its “internal contradictions” and such when marshalling it in conversation.

For Jameson [and here it must be noted he overlaps in several areas with David Harvey Ex. Both authors identify 1973 as a shift, Harvey points to it out of special concern for the collapse of Fordism and replacement with “supply side economics” and capital accumulation, Jameson views the break similarly but avoids descending into the economic debates of Harvey], postmodernism reacted to the efforts of its canonized predecessor. Both writers view postmodernism as aesthetic obessed at the expense of content. As well both point to modernism’s dilemma with time arguing that postmodernism’s fetish deals with space. One of postmodernim’s weakness, most visible in its architecture, is its historicism or the random cannibalizing of all past styles. Postmodernisms evoke a past simulacra (his and Harvey’s word not mine) which provides a duplicate of the past or a duplicate interpretation of the past which is then reproduced ad nasuem until it becomes our idea of the past and can be mistaken for the very past it represents. The use of simulacra and postmodernism’s focus on alienations leads to “feelings” or “intensities” within its works but they remain impersonal unlike modernism. Some of this relates to commodities and cultural production. The machinery of capitalism for Jameson has on some level infected postmodernism which displays an affinity for schlock or kitsch more than anything else. A fetish for the mass produced, turning away from the cultural pretensions of high modernism. Fragmentation as always proves a point of debate. For example, Jameson suggests that postmodernisms tendencies to look for breaks or ruptures and to emphasize smaller individual experiences has contributed to language’s ability to describe and communicate while reducing the power of literary devices such as parody. In regard to language, the existential emphasis on personal experience and the fragmentation of these experiences and interests makes understanding, the main point of language, difficult. Parody no longer suffices to hold the same weight b/c fragmentation makes it harder to find the single cultural dominant with which the audience can widely identify.

As for the postmodern crisis over space, Jameson has much to say. Place has been lost. The average person according to Jameson, can no longer map their own place in the multinational, decentralized, urban metropolis. Postmodernism locates humanity in a sort of hyperspace where “place in the U.S. no longer exists or it exists at much feebler levels.” (121) Space itself is not the culprit but capitalism and other global systems, “The problem is still one of representation, and also of representability: we know that we are caught within these more complex global networks, because we palpably suffer the prolongations of corporate space everywhere in our daily lives. Yet we have no way of thinking about them, of modeling them, however abstractly, in our mind.” (127) Yet it is through space that Jameson finds some redemption, “Spatialization, then, whatever it may take away in the capacity to think time and History, also opens a door onto a whole new domain for libidinal investment of the Utopian and even the protopolitical type.” (160) Postmodern spatialization textualizes all in its path from bodies, to the state, to consumption itself. While postmodernism creates space for marginalized groups its “’merely’” a cultural dominant as it coexists with other resistant and heterogenous forces which it has a vocation to subdue and incorporate.” (159)

Jameson’s take on economics proves one of the best chapters in the work. Jameson points out several aspects of socialism and capitalism or more specifically the rhetoric of the markets. First, he labels both utopian in there outlooks (for brevity’s sake let’s assume we know all his points about socialism since his insights on market rhetoric proves more interesting), market rhetoric continually defends laizze faire economics despite the fact no free markets exist anywhere in the world. Each is totalizing in its logic and actually has no political side yet they are interpreted as such. The market’s representation as nature is a point taken up by among others Thomas C. Holt. Postmodernim’s leanings have also contributed to the rise of political groups rather than a class politics. Groups prove smaller, easier to organize, more homogenous, and are imbued with a psychic connection lacking in class which is a sprawling heterogenous category that as Jameson astutely notes must be convinced first that it even exists. This also reflects late capitalism in its dispersement and atomization. The local concerns of groups need to be expanded and extrapolated such that they may incorporate other groups [anthropologists Steven Gregory and Roger Sanjeck say something similar in their respective works on Queens, New York noting that such groups must find ways to articulate their concerns in ways that resonate beyond their communities.]

Another interesting aspect of Jameson’s work involves his repeated discussion of modernism. For example, in its own time, modernism served as an oppositional discourse, avant garde in its beginnings. However, its appropriation by architects and then municipalities and national governments in housing and civic monument design, the canonization of its literature in the 1950s-60’s, and the passage of its art into museums across the West create the impression that it was THE cultural dominant of its era which it was not. This points to one of postmodernisms weaknesses its fetishization of the new such that it has no sense of history. In the end, Jameson notes that it may end up proving more useful to think of postmodernism as a transitional stage between two eras or capitalism. [interesting note here he makes the point that globalization and other new forms of finance have made it difficult for stable class formation let alone consciousness such that protests against such develops appear archaic to us since we still have not seen these new class formations fully develop in such a way that corresponds to the changes in the economy] [Similar to Wallerstein here …]

[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Category:Media Studies]]
[[Category:Wikify]]
[[Category:Book Summaries]]

Post Colonial Melancholia

2017-02-28T22:08:23Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = Postcolonial Melancholia
| author = Paul Gilroy
| publisher = Columbia University Press
| pub_date = September 22, 2004
| pages = 192
| isbn = 0231134541
| image = [[File:Postcolonial Melancholia.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}
The audible baying that some critics emit when encountering the concept of multiculturalism finds a key adversary in cultural historian Paul Gilroy’s ''Post Colonial Melancholia'', a work that attempts to resurrect the idea of multiculturalism with a new perspective and context, “this book offers an unorthodox defense of this twentieth century utopia of tolerance, peace, and mutual regard. Toward that end, I argue that the political conflict which characterize multicultural societies can take on a very different aspect if they are understood to exist firmly in a context supplied by imperial and colonial history.” Like numerous others in recent works, Gilroy connects domestic conceptions of race, racism, immigrants, and national identity to its imperial reach, affecting both newcomer and native born alike. Additionally, Gilroy calls for attention to the 20th century “histories of sufferings” in order to “furnish the resources for the peaceful accommodation of otherness in relation to fundamental commonality.” Such attentions result in part from Gilroy’s concerns over the failure of Britain to highlight or even explain their post colonial conflicts. The near worship of WWII era Britain obscures these realities and fails to account for the changes that have developed within Britain socially and politically.

Gilroy utilizes a wide variety of philosophical, historical, and cultural authors/works ranging from Franz Fanon, W.E.B DuBois, George Orwell, and Hannah Arendt to Nick Hornsby, Ali G, and “The Office”. As with works by Derrida and Thomas Bender, Gilroy promotes the idea of cosmopolitanism as one way to envision to new conceptions of membership and identity. To a great extent. ''Postcolonial Melancholia'' explores the meanings and implications of this cosmopolitanism. For Gilroy culture has been deployed too often in an attempt to explain difference and division rather than unity or commonality. Writers such as Samuel Huntington and political figures such as Slobodan Milosevic and Osama Bin Laden among others harness this “absolute culture” such that it does not necessarily confine itself to racial parameters like white supremacy. With that said, these individual did not invent this idea rather it emerged “in the bloody penumbra of the Third Reich, that innocent culture took over from raw natural hierarchy as the favored medium through which racial differences would become apparent as common sense.”

In terms of race, Gilroy undoubtedly believes in its continued existence but he encourages scholars to adjust their ideas of this force with the new realities of the day, “This … requires seeing 'race' as moral as well as political and analyzing it as part of a cosmopolitan understanding of the damage that racisms are still doing to democracy.” Gilroy takes society to task for lacking the political imagination to escape a “defensive solidarity” when thinking about/discussing race as people to often focus on minor differences failing to “see beyond reified and alienated racial categories” with some individuals utilizing this as a badge of pride. Gilroy points to both the more obvious example of history creating this situation but also the historical antecedents that contributed to the growth of antiracism movements of Pan Africanism and beyond.

Gilroy spares little criticism of globalization and the “humanitarian” efforts of Britain’s government. Tropes about globalization focus too intently on economic development ignoring the violence that Gilroy believes accompanies it. Likewise Gilroy attacks the language of humanitarianism employed by Tony Blair and other Western powers as a refracted vision of previous imperial formulations. Though Gilroy embraces the idea of cosmopolitanism, he suggests “the meaning and ambition of the term 'cosmopolitanism' has been hijacked and diminished by these changes … The discourse of human rights supplies the principal way in which this shared human nature can be made accessible to political debate and legal rationality. This is a rather ethnocentric outcome because the foundational investment that the west has made in the idea of rights is not itself a neutral or universal gesture. Most contemporary debates over human rights, globalization, and justice use “cosmopolitanism” to refer to the elaboration of a supranational system of regulation that opposes or contains the nation state from above … In the names of cosmopolitanism and humanitarianism, these particular moral sensibilities can promote and justify intervention in other people’s sovereign territory on the grounds that their ailing or incompetent nation state has failed to measure up to the levels of good practice that merit recognition as civilized.” In the imperial age, Britain used their own interventions as a marker of their own civilization especially in comparison with the imperial projects of their continental counterparts. Likewise, modern variants like “Blair’s moralism” accomplish a similar task.

The body of the immigrant serves as the new center of attention. The immigrant represents the reach of imperial Britain but also its failures. British society or at least segments of it, react hostility to such reminders, “its grudging recognition recognition provides a stimulus for forms of hostility rooted in the associated realization that today’s unwanted settlers carry all the ambivalence of empire with them. They project it into the unhappy consciousness of their fearful and anxious hosts and neighbors. Indeed, the incomers may be unwanted and feared … because they are the unwitting bearers of the imperial and colonial past.” (Note three pages later Gilroy points out that negative responses to the Macpherson report “suggest melancholia’s signature combination of manic elation with misery, self-loathing, and ambivalence. Hostility to the proposition that racist violence and institutional indifference are normal and recurrent features of British social and political life gets intermingled with absolute and sincere surprise at the nastiness of racism and the extend of anger and resentment it can cause.”, 103). Therefore, his point as made elsewhere refers to the bizarre formulation where overtly racist violence/acts are discouraged but embedded structures of the same remain… (ie.. he uses the fascination with skinheads which in turn pulls attention away from the more insidious threat the collared politician who masks his racism more benignly.) Even worse globalization's opponents have found utility in critiquing its foundations. What once may have seen racist or exclusionary now emerges as a heroic populist defense of “national culture.” [think Lou Dobbs or Pat Buchanaan in the US … “Arranged reverently around national flagpoles, the mean spirited people who only a short time before sounded like unreconstructed nativist, racists, and ultranationalists, and neo-Fascists turn out instead to be postmodern patriots and anxious, pragmatic liberals eager to be insulated from the chill of globalization by the warm glow of cosmopolitan imperialism, bolstered by newly invented cultural homogeneity.”]

Gilroy does not wish to obscure the presence of any group rather “we need to be able to see how the presence of strangers, aliens, and blacks, and the distinctive dynamics of Europe’s imperial history have combined to shape its cultural and political habits and institutions. These historical processes have to be understood as internal to the operations of European political culture.” Scholars and others must avoid reifying race or ethnic identity while taking “the divisive, dehumanizing power of race thinking more seriously than in the past.” Race needs to be identified as a “web of discourse,” and understood in this context. Moreover, the “fascination with the figure of the migrant must be made part of Europe’s history rather than its contemporary geography.” For Gilroy, “modern racism” must be a central consideration at the heart of today’s political, social, and economic landscape.

[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Category:Wikify]]
[[Category:Book Summaries]]

Consciousness and the Urban Experience

2017-02-28T22:08:08Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = Consciousness and the Urban Experience
| author = David Harvey
| publisher = Blackwell Publishers
| pub_date = 1985-11-07
| pages = 320
| isbn = 0631145745
| image = [[File:Consciousness and the Urban Experience.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}Marxist thinker David Harvey (what might be a better label, anthropologist? Social critic? etc.) wants to limit the privileged position scholars have designated time and history over space and geography. For Harvey, the emphasis on time and history, though valuable, ignores equally important developments, “Historical materialism appeared to license the study of historical transformations while ignoring how capitalism produces its own geography.” Too many works failed to truly conceptualize how “space is produced and how the process of production of space integrate into the capitalist dynamic and its contradictions …. The historical geography of capitalism has to be the object of our theorizing.” Harvey’s contribution in Consciousness and the Urban Experience is to utilize theory, cultural productions (mostly novels and similar literature from the periods he examines, mostly nineteenth century France with glimpses of England and America) and the “experiences” of Parisians from 1850-1870 to provide a catalog of capitalistic urbanization’s affects and as he noted, contradictions . Though the text remains a collection of essays, its held together at its core by a massive 125 chapter on the aforementioned Paris under the Second Empire.

As a leading Marxist, Harvey’s ideas regarding monetization and the pervasive influence of capital mobility should come as little surprise, “I argue that the very existence of money as a mediator of commodity exchange radically transforms and fixes the meanings of space and time in social life and defines limits and imposes necessities upon the shape and form of urbanization.” According to Harvey, the community of money imposes individualism along with “certain conceptions of liberty, freedom, and equality backed by laws of private property, rights to appropriation, and freedom of contract.” Transportation innovations improved aspects of urban life but also “profoundly changed the rhythm and form of urban life (though the idea of fixed time schedules over invariable routes at a fixed price had been around since the first omnibus routes in the 1820s).” Referencing Stephen Kern’s work on space and time under modernism (first twenty years or so of he 20th century), Harvey acknowledges new conceptions and temporal divisions, “the rise of mass circulation newspapers, the advent of telegraph and telephone, or radio and television, all contributed to a new sense of simultaneity over space and total uniformity in coordinated and universally uniform time.” Here one can locate Harvey’s attention to space as typical of the postmodern turn. For Harvey, money “concentrates social power in space” with little restraint which in turn commodifies space such that it brings “all space under the single measuring rod of money value.” The real danger here for Harvey lay in the commodification’s ability to undermine class relations where people identify themselves along differentiated lines of status that rarely illustrate inclusiveness, “the response is for each and every stratum in society to use whatever powers of domination it can command (money, political influence, even violence) to try to seal itself off (or seal off others judged undesirable) in fragments of space within which processes of reproduction of social distinctions can be jealously guarded.” Despite its obvious Marxist leanings, Harvey’s point resonates as such processes unfolded in nineteenth century France and post WWII America . This community of money fragments society while also subsuming other forms of solidarities. Circulation of capital or capital mobility as some writers might characterize it, functions to destabilize identities and memberships even fragmenting protest against it, “Movements of revulsion an revolt against capitalism, its social basis or particular effects, become as diverse and incoherent as the systems they arise in opposition to.” Harvey continues in this vein noting that, “Homeownership … invites a faction of the working class to wage its inevitable fight over the appropriation of value in capitalist society in a very different way. It puts them on the side of the principle of private property and frequently leads them to appropriate values at the expense of other factions fo the working class. With such a glorious tool to divide and rule at its disposal, it is hardly surprising that capital in general sides with labor in this regard against the landed interest.” In this context, the state functions to restrain the “disintegrating tendencies of money, time and space in the face of the contradictions of capital circulation.” Lack of money for some means they must resort to other methods in order to articulate their territorial privileges, “those without money have to define their territorial privileges by other means … low income and minority populations seek to define collective spaces within which they can exercise the strictest social control.”

Labor processes unfold within this context. However, as Harvey notes they tend to divide in two general direction: one that focuses on wages and the other on residential access or more specifically, “the second fought in the place of residence, is against secondary forms of exploitation and appropriation represented by merchant capital, landed property, and the like. This is a fight over the costs and conditions of existence in the living place.” Harvey places much of his attention on this latter issue. Harvey locates four general interventions: 1) private property and homeownership for labor 2) the cost of living and the wage rate 3) “rational,” managed and collective consumption, and 4) the relation to nature and imposition of work discipline (this last one is a bit amorphous as Harvey fails to define it in absolute terms). As with Anthony King’s history of the bungalow, Harvey points out the capital accumulation that develops in such a commoditized land market. Again, as with King, industrialization, capital mobility, and business profits combine to project the “community of money”, moreover, capital accumulation as with the bungalow, requires constant growth the creation of new social wants and needs, just as King’s bungalows supplied a site for this consumerist process. Capital must exert control over labor not only in work but also in consumerism. For Harvey, it appears to be a totalizing and inescapable force. In terms of its relation to the “built environment”, it becomes a central node of struggle as capital and labor battle over “what is good for accumulation and what is good for people.” With this in mind, capitalist forces depend on the obscuring of their own roles in the process, “The privatization of housing provision, the creation of a separate housing landlord class, the creation of innumerable intermediaries in the retail and wholesale sector, and government provision of social services and public goods all help to accomplish this. These measures also serve to socialize part of the costs of reproduction of labor power and to facilitate the mobility of labor. For all of these reasons, the industrial capitalists seek to withdraw entirely from any direct involvement in the provision or management of the built environment.”

Harvey applies his theoretical apparutus to Paris under the Second Empire (1850-1870). Without completely retracing every example Harvey marshals one might focus on a couple key points. The circulation of capital serves to spread the city outward allowing for small scale urban development along Paris’ periphery. Utilizing the person of Baron Georges von Haussman as an almost nineteenth century Robert Moses, Harvey attempts to illustrate how what one might call today Haussman’s “urban renewal/redevelopment” policies affected spatial, political and class relations in the city. Circulation of capital allowed Haussman to prevent the divergent interests of this redevelopment from pulling itself apart. Land valuation and rents “increasingly functioned to allocate land to uses according to a distinctly capitalist logic.” Financial systems, as those in 20th century America clearly favored upper and upper middle class interests. Still, though this worked against working class interests, the circulation of capital and growth of peripherial development meant state surveillance of suffered to an extent that, “The workers became les of an organized threat, but they became harder to monitor. The tactics and geography of class struggle therefore underwent radical change.” Interestingly, Harvey portrays Paris in this historical moment similarly to Saskia Sassen’s “global cities” of the 20th century (most strikingly with New York in both The Mobility and Labor of Capital and The Global City - Paris though not a subject of her book was designated as such within) especially when he speaks of the survival of small scale labor intensive industry in the face of larger commercial enterprises and as well, in reference to economies of agglomeration (which provide specialized services). Ultimately, transitions unfolding in labor did more to hurt workers than did political repression by state authorities. Again, as with Sassen’s twentieth century counterparts, gendered labor occupies an important position. Though Sassen notes the “feminization of work” and similar processes, Harvey finds corresponding evidence that women served as key players in the Parisian economy dominating domestic service while supplying cheap labor to manufacturers, “To the degree that the immigrants of the 1850s formed families in the 1860s, so the employment of women became more and more of a sheer economic necessity.” Women’s authority came to hold an acknowledged place in the home and through education, much like middle class North American women of the reform movement. However, most women who were unattached to a male figure or patron found themselves at the mercy of a severely gendered employment market. This led to the monetization and commodification of sexual relations and personal liaisons across classes. Prostitution and the various grey social areas around which it organizes emerges as common to Paris and American cities of late nineteenth century.

Haussman’s policies rent asunder traditional notions of community and class, while “transformations in financial structures and labor process had no less an impact upon the material baiss of class relations.” Within in this context the Paris Commune unfolded (Harvey calls it the “the greatest class based communal uprising in capitalist history”)

Finally, Harvey concludes with thought on the “urbanization of capital.” Locating five “loci” (individualism, class, community, state, and family) , Harvey notes they cannot be understood independently but in relation to one another, “It is the total patterning of interrelations between them that counts.” Urbanization of capital requires these relations to be structured in specific way. Thus, the urbanization of capital must be understood in its relation to the “urbanization of conciousness” (i.e. it is the structures of the “urbanization of capital” that help to impose the “urbanization of consciousness.”) Harvey advises readers to go beyond surface understandings (though he also acknowledges that as humans it would be impossible to operate without such understandings, here he seems to be saying that we should not be exclusively loyal to such surface understandings). Local urban class alliances and state interventions help to perpetuate capitalism by agreeing to pursue growth machine politics, encourage the circulation of capital, and the construction of new social and physical spaces that continually expand markets. Acceptable behaviors spread outward from such urban class alliances such that, “the urban milieu, considered as a physical and social artifact, mediates the production of consciousness in important ways, thus giving urban life and consciousness many of their distinctive qualities.”
[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Cateogry:Urban Studies]]

[[Category:Wikify]]
[[Category:Book Summaries]]
[[Category:David Harvey]]

The Condition of Postmodernity

2017-02-28T22:07:52Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change
| author = David Harvey
| publisher = Wiley-Blackwell
| pub_date = 1991
| pages = 392
| isbn = 0631162941
| image = [[File:The Condition of Postmodernity.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}
David Harvey’s investigation into post-modernity reveals a problematic construct that though gives voice to otherness, simultaneously ghettoizes them in an “opaque otherness”. Beginnning with the rise of “modernism” out of Enlightenment thought, Harvey attempts to map the cultural changes that have unfolded from Modernism to post-modernism. Along the way numerous shifts within modernism itself helped to construct the post modern turn in society and academia that so dominated the 1970s and 80s.

Early forms of Enlightenment modernism privileged a scientific rational expression of modernism (Descartes – “I think therefore I am”), however the shift from a rational scientific approach to one driven by aesthetics (think of Rousseau’s reformulation of Descartes, “I feel therefore I am”) meant a rush of “cultural subjectivity”, increasing the individualistic nature of inquiry. Achieving the goals of Enlightenment thought through aesthetic appeals contributed to the “commodification and commercialization of a market for cultural products” placing producers in competition, leading to the growth of “creative destruction.” (22) [“Modernism internalized its own maelstrom of ambiguities, contradictions, and pulsating aesthetic changes at the same time as it sought to affect the aesthetics of daily life. (22)] Harvey carefully notes that modernism was not a monolithic entity but rather one found itself connected to urban growth and differed from city to city. Thus, the pointing out of difference between European modernism and the American variant appears to be an extension of this idea. Ironically, before WWI, modernism in art looked to expose multiple perspectives, revealing alienation, anxiety, and opposed to any hierarchy or bourgesie consumerism. However, the despair and destruction of WWI altered its trajectory. As “high modernism … [became] the establishment arts and practices in society where a corporate capitalist version of the Enlightenment project of development for progress and human emancipation held sway as a political-economic dominant.” (35) The rise of individuals like Le Corbusier did little to ease such developments [such leaders designed for “abstract man” rather than people as can been seen in numerous housing attempts etc.] By the 1960s, resistance to modernism resulted in a form of resistance known as postmodernism [“It was almost as if the universal pretensions of modernity had, when combined with liberal capitalism and imperialism, succeeded so well as to provide a material and political foundation for a cosmopolitan, transnational, hence global movement of resistance to the hegemony of high modernist culture.” (38]

Modernism’s focus on the problem of time [think Stephen Kern’s The Culture of Time and Space in which arose a personalized time etc. that was highly individualized etc] shifted under Post Modernism to space. Post modernists debated how to regard space while modernists continued to apply a larger social purpose. For post modernists, spce in independent, autonomous, and shaped by aesthetics. Post WWII reconstruction of Europe and the expansion of public housing in the US [basically post war urbanization efforts] seemed to reinforce the importance of space. Housing and urban space became the “architecture of spectacle”, as the buildings became a form of communication and the city a discourse unto itself. Post modernism refused to strike “authoritative” or “immutable standards of aesthetic judgment” rather judgements now hinged on how “spectactular” the aesthetics proved to be.

Following The Condition of Postmodernity’s first three chapters, Harvey reveals his Marxist groundings as he focuses on the shift from Fordism (which he acknowledges had its own internal weaknesses and problems but which in comparison to what came provided for unionization and some level of wealth distribution) to flexible accumulation. According to Harvey, post modernism contributed to this development, “The relatively stable aesthetic of Fordist modernism has given way to all the ferment, instability, and fleeting qualities of a postmodernist aesthetic that celebrates difference, ephemerality, spectacle, fashion, and the commodification of cultural forms.” (156). The reorganzition of global economics priviledged “powers of greater coordination”, leading to greater use of finance capital, resulting in a devaluation of commodities and a fall in standard of living. Ironically, the decline in the importance of borders has increased the value of space, “shifts in tempo or in spatial ordering redistribute social power by changing the conditions of monetary gains (in the form of wages, profits, capital gains, the like). Superior command over space has always been viatl aspect of class (and intra class struggle)” (232). Influencing “the production of space” allows organizations or nations to “augment social power”. (233) Representation of space also factors in as Harvey notes “If a picture or map is worth a thousand words, then power in the realms of representation may end up being as important as power over the materiality of spatial organization itself.” (233) historically this has meant that working class movements achieve far more success over place rather than space. The collapse of spatial barriers have increased space’s value, “The active production of places with spatial qualities becomes an important element in spatial competition between localities, regimes, and nations.” (295) [note to self – he goes over Lfeb. Production of space and such on 257].

Media images and advertisements also play a role. They play a “much more integrative role in affecting practices and growth dynamics of capitalism.” (289) [note – paradox of spatial barriers – “the less important spatial barriers, the greater the sensitivity of capital to the variations of place within space, and the greater the incentive for places to be differentiated in ways attractive to capital.” (298) [ he continues to note now money and commodities are the primary carriers of cultural capital] The rise of simulacrum further complicates developments. The use of simulcrm works to erase any trace of labor or social relations from its production but post modernists fail to acknowledge this since many post modernists “disengage” urban spaces from their dependence on functions. [Harvey suggests Post modernist view such space as “autonomous formal system” incorporating a rhetorical and artistic strategy that is independent of historical determinism].

Harvey offers little support for deconstructionism, deriding its efforts for allowing the resurgence of charismatic politics. Deconstructionism accelerated the fragmentation that took place as post modernism spread. If deconstructionism avoids a grand narrative it also fragments to the extent that unified action seems unlikely as well.

[[Category:Media Studies]]

[[Category:Theory and Methodology]][[Category:David Harvey]]
[[Category:Wikify]]
[[Category:Book Summaries]]

The Condition of Postmodernity

2017-02-28T22:07:33Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change
| author = David Harvey
| publisher = Wiley-Blackwell
| pub_date = 1991
| pages = 392
| isbn = 0631162941
| image = [[File:The Condition of Postmodernity.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}
David Harvey’s investigation into post-modernity reveals a problematic construct that though gives voice to otherness, simultaneously ghettoizes them in an “opaque otherness”. Beginnning with the rise of “modernism” out of Enlightenment thought, Harvey attempts to map the cultural changes that have unfolded from Modernism to post-modernism. Along the way numerous shifts within modernism itself helped to construct the post modern turn in society and academia that so dominated the 1970s and 80s.

Early forms of Enlightenment modernism privileged a scientific rational expression of modernism (Descartes – “I think therefore I am”), however the shift from a rational scientific approach to one driven by aesthetics (think of Rousseau’s reformulation of Descartes, “I feel therefore I am”) meant a rush of “cultural subjectivity”, increasing the individualistic nature of inquiry. Achieving the goals of Enlightenment thought through aesthetic appeals contributed to the “commodification and commercialization of a market for cultural products” placing producers in competition, leading to the growth of “creative destruction.” (22) [“Modernism internalized its own maelstrom of ambiguities, contradictions, and pulsating aesthetic changes at the same time as it sought to affect the aesthetics of daily life. (22)] Harvey carefully notes that modernism was not a monolithic entity but rather one found itself connected to urban growth and differed from city to city. Thus, the pointing out of difference between European modernism and the American variant appears to be an extension of this idea. Ironically, before WWI, modernism in art looked to expose multiple perspectives, revealing alienation, anxiety, and opposed to any hierarchy or bourgesie consumerism. However, the despair and destruction of WWI altered its trajectory. As “high modernism … [became] the establishment arts and practices in society where a corporate capitalist version of the Enlightenment project of development for progress and human emancipation held sway as a political-economic dominant.” (35) The rise of individuals like Le Corbusier did little to ease such developments [such leaders designed for “abstract man” rather than people as can been seen in numerous housing attempts etc.] By the 1960s, resistance to modernism resulted in a form of resistance known as postmodernism [“It was almost as if the universal pretensions of modernity had, when combined with liberal capitalism and imperialism, succeeded so well as to provide a material and political foundation for a cosmopolitan, transnational, hence global movement of resistance to the hegemony of high modernist culture.” (38]

Modernism’s focus on the problem of time [think Stephen Kern’s The Culture of Time and Space in which arose a personalized time etc. that was highly individualized etc] shifted under Post Modernism to space. Post modernists debated how to regard space while modernists continued to apply a larger social purpose. For post modernists, spce in independent, autonomous, and shaped by aesthetics. Post WWII reconstruction of Europe and the expansion of public housing in the US [basically post war urbanization efforts] seemed to reinforce the importance of space. Housing and urban space became the “architecture of spectacle”, as the buildings became a form of communication and the city a discourse unto itself. Post modernism refused to strike “authoritative” or “immutable standards of aesthetic judgment” rather judgements now hinged on how “spectactular” the aesthetics proved to be.

Following The Condition of Postmodernity’s first three chapters, Harvey reveals his Marxist groundings as he focuses on the shift from Fordism (which he acknowledges had its own internal weaknesses and problems but which in comparison to what came provided for unionization and some level of wealth distribution) to flexible accumulation. According to Harvey, post modernism contributed to this development, “The relatively stable aesthetic of Fordist modernism has given way to all the ferment, instability, and fleeting qualities of a postmodernist aesthetic that celebrates difference, ephemerality, spectacle, fashion, and the commodification of cultural forms.” (156). The reorganzition of global economics priviledged “powers of greater coordination”, leading to greater use of finance capital, resulting in a devaluation of commodities and a fall in standard of living. Ironically, the decline in the importance of borders has increased the value of space, “shifts in tempo or in spatial ordering redistribute social power by changing the conditions of monetary gains (in the form of wages, profits, capital gains, the like). Superior command over space has always been viatl aspect of class (and intra class struggle)” (232). Influencing “the production of space” allows organizations or nations to “augment social power”. (233) Representation of space also factors in as Harvey notes “If a picture or map is worth a thousand words, then power in the realms of representation may end up being as important as power over the materiality of spatial organization itself.” (233) historically this has meant that working class movements achieve far more success over place rather than space. The collapse of spatial barriers have increased space’s value, “The active production of places with spatial qualities becomes an important element in spatial competition between localities, regimes, and nations.” (295) [note to self – he goes over Lfeb. Production of space and such on 257].

Media images and advertisements also play a role. They play a “much more integrative role in affecting practices and growth dynamics of capitalism.” (289) [note – paradox of spatial barriers – “the less important spatial barriers, the greater the sensitivity of capital to the variations of place within space, and the greater the incentive for places to be differentiated in ways attractive to capital.” (298) [ he continues to note now money and commodities are the primary carriers of cultural capital] The rise of simulacrum further complicates developments. The use of simulcrm works to erase any trace of labor or social relations from its production but post modernists fail to acknowledge this since many post modernists “disengage” urban spaces from their dependence on functions. [Harvey suggests Post modernist view such space as “autonomous formal system” incorporating a rhetorical and artistic strategy that is independent of historical determinism].

Harvey offers little support for deconstructionism, deriding its efforts for allowing the resurgence of charismatic politics. Deconstructionism accelerated the fragmentation that took place as post modernism spread. If deconstructionism avoids a grand narrative it also fragments to the extent that unifed action seems unlikely as well.

[[Category:Media Studies]]

[[Category:Theory and Methodology]][[Category:David Harvey]]
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Multitude

2017-02-28T22:07:14Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire
| author = Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
| publisher = Penguin Books
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 448
| isbn = 0143035592
| image = [[File:Multitude.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}
''Multitude'' is the follow-up to Hardt and Negri’s much-discussed work ''Empire'', which attempted to synthesize the work of a variety of thinkers (Deleuze, Castells, Foucault) into a grand thesis that updated Marxism for the world of 21st century globalization. Though much clearer and more understandable than, say, Deleuze, ''Empire'' could still be a dense and difficult read. Packed with theoretical references and historical and literary allusions, ''Multitude'' is comparatively more accessible and significantly shorter than its predecessor.

More importantly, ''Multitude'' attempts two tasks: one, to reconcile the vision of ''Empire'' with the reassertion of violent US nationalism in the war on terror, which the first book seemingly failed to anticipate; and two, to show how people might resist the all-pervasive power of global capitalism. ''Empire'' suggested that conventional understandings of imperialism, colonialism, and neo- or post-colonialism were inadequate for the 1990s era, in which the US emerged as the sole “superpower” yet did not exert direct political control over other nations in the traditional sense of European and Asian empires (e.g. the British or Japanese). Hardt and Negri argued that the real “Empire” was a skein of commercial and political relationships that encircled the globe, operating without a clear center but enfolding most of the world’s people within the norms of international trade and the dominance of multinational corporations. Exemplars of this new, de-centered form of imperial rule included trade agreements like NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO, as well as the less formalized protocols of business – what Hardt and Negri call in ''Multitude'' the “lex mercatoria.” This system “originally referred to the legal structures that governed trade among merchants in medieval Europe at centers outside the jurisdictions of all the sovereign powers,” they write (169):

“To the extent that corporations and their law firms develop an international and even global regime of lex mercatoria and thereby establish normative processes that regulate globalization, capital creates in its weakest form a kind of ‘global governance without government.’ The resulting regime of global law is no longer a captive of state structures and no longer takes the form of written codes or preestablished rules but is purely conventional and customary. Law here is not an external constraint that regulates capital but rather an internal expression of agreement among capitalists. This is really a kind of capitalist utopia.” (170)

In ''Multitude'', the authors attempt to show that this stateless ''Empire'' creates its own opposite – the Multitude, which is somewhat analogous to the traditional opposition of capital and labor, or the proletariat. In the same way that earlier capitalist industrialization created a regimented working class by taking people off the fields and putting them in the “dark, satanic mill” of yore, today’s boundless capitalism is linking workers all over the world through everything from telecommunications to international flows of labor, popular culture, and foodways. In this sense, they make a similar point to the one Marx made about free trade – which he supported, only because it would expedite the development of capitalism and its (supposedly) inevitable collapse. This is not to say that Hardt and Negri are advocates of so-called free trade and footloose capital, freed of all legal and national constraints – nor do their anarchistic visions of spontaneous, pluralistic, non-hierarchical political organization mean that they are opposed to the traditional welfare state or labor unions, which they see as necessary safeguards of public well-being that the people have achieved through long and desperate struggle. They do, however, see the outlines of a potentially liberatory political movement emerging through the same global circuits of communication and organization that make today’s global capitalism possible.

In explaining the political prospects of the ''Multitude'', Hardt and Negri return to the analysis of the “information” or “post-industrial” economy that they initiated in ''Empire''. Drawing on the work of the sociologist Manuel Castells and others, the authors are careful to point out that such a designation does not mean that the majority of workers in the world, or even in the United States, work at producing information or intellectual property. Rather, they argue that the use of information technology is transforming all areas of production, from agriculture to manufacturing. They turn to the Marxist idea of the tendency, suggesting that while information industries may represent a small portion of overall labor and production, they are the most influential or hegemonic form of production in today’s world. Industrialization in the 19th and 20th century transformed the entirety of society, as farming was reconstituted along the lines of manufacturing, with the introduction of mechanical implements and chemical fertilizers. Similarly, vast numbers of people in the world remain employed in agriculture, but the research-intensive and intellectual property-owning industries like Monsanto have reshaped this sector through genetically modified seeds. Likewise, information technology has penetrated manufacturing in numerous ways, as computers and satellite communication permit the dispersal of production around the world; meanwhile, techniques such as “just-in-time” production rely on speedy communication to customize small batches of products. In this sense, the economy has been “informationalized.”

Hardt and Negri also contend that this new economy depends more than ever on the production of “affect,” on the production of life itself. Employment in health, education, and other services is greater than in the past, as people work at maintaining and reproducing the labor force, while the production of knowledge and cultural expression hold a greater prominence – and dollar value – than ever before. The authors note that capitalism attempts to subjugate these productive forces, just as capital has always alienated workers from their labor, and knowledge and expression become commodified as “information.” (They won’t let the mask slip, though; Microsoft Word tells me “commodified” is not a word.) This wholesale appropriation of language, tradition, imagery, and sensation for the purposes of property and profit is depressing, but the authors also point out that capital can never capture the full value of the people’s productivity. For example, GDP does not account for the creative labor of slum dwellers in Brazil, who clearly sustain their own lives and the lives of others through their everyday work, despite contributing nothing to the measurable economy. One could also say that the massive growth of the underground economy throughout the world in the last thirty years reflects this uncommodifiable productivity, as when music and movies are pirated and circulated off-the-books, for reasons of profit or personal pleasure. The labor that goes into a church bulletin or Wikipedia is unavailable to capital. As always, labor power resides with the laborers and, Hardt and Negri suggest, in the elusive web of everyday life. This is the spring from which capital’s power flows, but it remains difficult to control. It is also the source of Multitude’s creativity, diversity, and potential power.

To show how the Multitude might make itself felt politically, Hardt and Negri turn to a curious history of revolutionary struggle. They connect the large, hierarchical “people’s armies” of Lenin and Trotsky with the industrial mode of mass production and factory labor. They then trace the development of new forms of organization, from Mao’s peasant army to Che and Castro’s ''foquismo'', which employed a polycentric pattern of quasi-independent units of guerilla soldiers. As the authors note, this flatter form of organization was eventually reduced into a single national army under a single authority following the victory of the Revolution and the establishment of Castro as a dictator. Radical groups in the 1970s moved guerilla warfare into the cities, as seen in Germany’s Red Army and Italy’s Red Brigades, but they failed to move beyond the top-down structure of traditional militaries. Hardt and Negri suggest that the Los Angeles riots (or rebellion, if your prefer) of 1992 reflect a spontaneous form of political organization, and they point to the Zapatista movement and the Palestinian Intifada as clearer examples of “network organization,” which “is based on the ''continuing'' plurality of its elements and its networks of communication in such a way that reduction to a centralized and unified command structure is impossible.” (82-83) They see the Intifada as criss-crossed with different structures, some directed by established Palestinian political organizations (such as Fatah and Hamas) and others springing from “poor young men on a very local level around neighborhood leaders and popular committees.” (84)

The authors take pains to contrast this kind of movement with Al Qaeda and drug cartels, which are also “networks” but allegedly feature a militaristic chain of command. This point is, of course, debatable. Few of us really understand what, if anything, Al Qaeda is, and the small factions that develop (everything from Al Qaeda in Northern Europe to Al Qaeda in Northern Manitoba) may or may not be directly controlled by top commanders. Hardt and Negri’s claim about drug cartels is sounder, as they appear to operate with ruthless discipline despite their flexible and interlocking relationship with similar criminal organizations around the globe. As Castells has suggested in ''End of Millennium'', these violent organizations are just as much a reflection of the “network society” as the Zapatistas or anti-globalization activists.

The concept of the Multitude itself remains problematic by the end of the book. Hardt and Negri imagine this political entity emerging from the diversity of political interests, cultural drives, and economic needs that characterize the whole population of the world, and, like so many leftists, they look to the Seattle WTO protests of 1999 as an exemplary moment, when black-hooded anarchists, liberal Christians, environmentalists, and union members could all collaborate on common positions despite their ideological differences. When the authors finally offer their political proposals, they are not very convincing – global democracy through a reformed United Nations, or global cooperation of activists through instruments like the World Social Forum. Understandably enough, no one has quite cracked the nut of how to combat capitalism on a global scale. Creating a viable (or even desirable) successor to the Communist International is not easy, and creating a lively synthesis of neo-Marxist thought is a bit easier.

What Hardt and Negri do favor seems to be a kind of anarchism – a way for people to collaborate and govern their affairs without the domination of capital or the nefarious doings of its partner, the state. (The state, again, is available as a tool for alleviating the sorrows inflicted by capitalism, even as it is the bulwark protecting capital and the cudgel used by private enterprise to do all sorts of evil deeds, like locking down Iraq’s oil fields for Exxon Mobil.) The authors look to the identity politics of the late twentieth century with a favorable eye, as feminism, gay rights, and anti-racism movements developed ways to function without adopting a single voice or denying their own irreducible differences, to borrow a fashionable academic phrase. In many ways, this yen for a self-organized, non-hierarchical movement that brings together differing factions resembles liberal pluralism, disguised behind the mask of militant Marxism. What were the WTO protests or the political projects of progressive women, African Americans, and gay rights campaigners but the essence of coalition politics in a liberal democracy?

The Multitude can emerge when people organize along lines of similarity, which is how the democracy of our dreams works. Hardt and Negri might prefer that this cooperation and self-government take the form of Murray Bookchin’s municipalism or the Autonomia movement of Negri’s radical youth, but in the present day it seems to comport well with a social democratic politics of pluralism – one that always has its eye on reducing violence and enhancing the freedom and happiness of all people, in the face of stern resistance from both capital and the dead-weight of history.

[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Category:Michael Hardt]]
[[Category:Antonio Negri]]
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Category:Wikify

2017-02-28T22:06:31Z

Emeehan: Created page with "'''If you are a requester:''' Articles from time to time lose the wiki syntax they (hopefully) had when they were first created. When you notice such an article, add the "<no..."

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The West and the Rest

2017-02-28T22:04:51Z

Emeehan:

'''Hall, Stuart (1992) “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power”,''' '''in Stuart Hall and Bram Gieben, eds. ''Formations of Modernity''. Open University/Polity Press, pp. 275-331.'''

Cultural theorist Stuart Hall takes dead aim at the construction of western discourse, which he argues utilizes a binary of the “West and the Rest” to emphasize European uniqueness and non-western inferiority. Utilizing Michele Foucault’s idea’s regarding discourse and Said’s work on “Orientalism”, Hall suggests that the persistence of such ideas, continues to infect even the best intentioned contemporary scholars including those who sought to deconstruct the West as it was such as Karl Marx and Max Weber .

Hall begins pointing to the construction of “the West” as a concept itself. Its utility as an abstraction allows European observers to classify societies into different categories, condense a complicated set of images and peoples into a simple idea, provides a “standard model of comparison” and supplies “”criteria of evalution against which other societies may be ranked. Once a concept, the West “became productive in its turn”, creating knowledge about other places and peoples. Difference served as its markers,”the difference of these societies and cultures from the West was the standard against which the West’s achievement was measured. It is in the context of these relationships that the idea of the “West” took on … meaning. … national cultures acquire their strong sense of identity by contrasting themselves with other cultures.” [some of this sounds vaguely Foucaultian i.e. the importance of difference, this kind of emphasis on character both in The Order of Things] Moreover, this concept of the West obscures the wide differences among western peoples presenting them as a homogenous whole. This construction “draws crude and simple distinctions and constructs an oversimplified conception of difference.”

Tracing the construction of this discourse back to Marco Polo and the Crusades, Europe only found itself able to move eastward after it over came the physical and psychological barriers, “For what lay beyond, Europe relied on the other sources of knowledge” classical, biblical, legendary, and mythological. Asia remained largely a world of elephants and other wonders almost as remote as Sub-Saharan Africa.” The Age of Exploration and Conquest accelerated tropes of Western dominance as “difference” served to distinguish Europeans from non-western peoples. The unifying force of Christiandom provided a “co-identity” in which “Europe’s Christian identity – what made its civilization distinct and unique – was in its first instance, essentially religious and Christian.” Only later did Europe develop its geographical, political, and economic identity. Hall points out historians need to consider European motives in its various attempts at exploration. Even though rulers desired wealth, many also expressed a belief in both God and mammon, with the two being compatible, “These fervently religious Catholic rulers fully believed what they were saying. To them, serving, God and pursing “our advantage” were not necessarily at odds. They lived and fully believed their own ideology … it is clear their discourse was molded and influenced by the play of motives and interests across their language.” The importance here is two fold: 1) to illustrate discourse’s pervasiveness and embedded nature and 2) to realize that those who control discourse often have the means to make it a reality often through what Foucault called a “regime of truth”. As Said has argued, these Western discourses of the “other” have powerful effects, through discourse power circulates and “is contested.”Again , as with Said, sexuality emerges as a powerful influence in the construction of discourse as Hall notes the gendered and sexual imagery central to exploration, conquest, and domination tropes common to European observers.

Ironically, the difference that proved so critical to western discourse resulted from myopia rather then analysis. European soldiers, explorers, and others failed to recognize the complex societies of indigenous peoples, mistaking the lack of European like examples as a sign of backwardness. Similarly, the conflation of “modernity” with “Europe” or the west builds upon these alleged “differences”. Even great engineering feats such as the vast system of roads and highways created by the Inca’s drew little praise from Western observers. Moreover, natives frequently illustrate extreme behavior in European discourse such that one moment they are docile and beautiful and the next monstrous and cannibalistic. In classical Saidian form, Hall points out that the idea of the noble and ignoble savage also reflected Europe’s idea of itself. The noble savage stood in opposition to “the Continent’s” ills, “Thus the “noble savage” became the vehicle for a wide ranging critique of the over refinement, religious hypocrisy, and divisions by social rank that existed in the West.” (218) All this led up the Enlightenment which expanded on this discourse, disseminating its beliefs while constructing a template for “rude” and “refined” nations. Social Scientists of the day put forth the idea that “the West was the model, the prototy and the measure of social progress … Without the Rest (or its internal “others”), the West may not have been able to recognize itself as the summit of human history.” (221)

[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Category:Stuart Hall]]
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Kings, Centers, and Charisma

2017-02-28T22:04:37Z

Emeehan:

'''Geertz, Clifford.. "Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power," in ''Culture and Its Creators'' edited by Ben-David J. Clark. University of Chicago Press, pp. 150-171, 1977'''

<blockquote>“We interpret motives in terms of their consummations, but we interpret moods in terms of their sources. We say that a person is industrious because he wishes to succeed; we say that a person is worried because he is conscious of the hanging threat of nuclear holocaust. And this is no less case when interpretations are ultimate. Charity becomes Christian charity when it is enclosed in the conception of God’s purposes; optimism is Christian optimism when it is grounded in a particular conception of God’s nature.” – Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures</blockquote>

Renowned sociologist/anthropologist Clifford Geertz points to the importance of cultural context when examing the interpretation of mood in cultures. Geertz’s work in the field of anthropology, specifically The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), offers incredible insight into the manifestations of cultures in such areas as mood, motives, and charisma. In “Centers, Kings, and Charisma”, Geertz delves into the cultures of three distinct peoples, Elizabeth’s England, Hayam Wuruk’s Java, and Mulay Hasan’s Morocco examining their perspectives on charisma and its legitimizing forces. Using Max Weber’s landmark essay on charisma as a departure point for a more comparative study, Geertz explores charisma and how cultures legitimate it and what actions a leader must take to maintain it. As Geertz argues above, cultures have specific contexts, thus each perceives concepts through their own particular cultural lens. Therefore, charisma and the conditions or actions needed to ensure a leader’s legitimacy differ according to the cultural constructs in which this charisma must reside.

According to Geertz, Weber’s analysis of charisma has been oversimplified, ultimately reduced, to a psychological interpretation, “In more recent and less heroic times, however, the tendency has been to ease the weight of his thought by collapsing it into one of its dimensions, most commonly the psychological, and nowhere has this been more true than its connection with charisma,” (13). Continuing along these lines, Geertz argues that many current interpretations regard charisma as a product of social disintegration, “the main interpretation of the rather more genuine upsurge of charismatic leadership in the New States has been that it is a product of psychopathology encouraged by social disorder,” (13). Geertz finds these perceptions of charisma simplistic and flawed. Additionally, Geertz realizes the western interpretations of charisma that have dominated. Geertz skillfully lays out the comparative differences of charisma between cultures.

However, Geertz does not find all current scholarship on the subject of charisma as inaccurate. Edward Shils work strikes a particular chord with Geertz’s own thought. According to Geertz, Shils avoids the Neo-Freudian interpretation, pinpointing the numerous themes present in Weber’s conception, “A few scholars, among them prominently Edward Shils, have, however, sought to avoid this reduction of difficult richness to neo-Freudian cliché by facing up to the fact that there are multiple themes in Weber’s concept of charisma, that almost all of them are more stated than developed, and that the preservation of the force of the concept depends upon developing them and uncovering thereby the exact dynamics of their interplay,” (14). It is this interplay of multiple themes that interests Geertz and his discussion of charisma. Yet, Geertz outlines Shils’s argument more explicitly, in order to reveal the structure of his own investigation:

<blockquote>In Shils’s case, the lost dimensions of charisma have been restored by stressing the connection between the symbolic value individuals possess and their relation to the active centers of the social order. Such centers, which have “nothing to do with geometry and little with geography” are essentially concentrated loci of serious acts; they consist in the point or points in a society where its leading ideas come together with its leading institutions to create an arena in which the events that most vitally effect its members’ lives take place. It is an involvement, even oppositional involvement, with such arenas and with the momentous events that occur in them that confers charisma. It is a sign, not of popular appeal or inventive craziness, but of being near the heart of things. (14)</blockquote>

Following Shils’s argument Geertz desires an exploration of “the inherent sacredness of sovereign power”. Linking the properties of rulers and gods, Geertz formulates his argument around Shils’s reformulations, “if charisma is a sign of involvement with the animating centers of society, and if such centers are cultural phenomena, and thus historically constructed, investigations into the symbolics of power and into its nature are similar endeavors. The easy distinction between the trappings of rule and its substance becomes less sharp, even less real; what counts is the manner in which, a bit like mass and energy, they are transformed into each other,” (15).

All organized societies have a political center. This political center has both a ruling elite and a collection of symbols made to legitimize those ruling. Essentially, rulers must justify themselves, “they justify their existence and order their actions in terms of a collection of stories, ceremonies, insignia, formalities … that they have either inherited or, in more revolutionary situations, invented. It is these … that mark the center as center and give what goes on there is aura of being not merely important but in some odd fashion connected with the way the world is built,” (15). Geertz utilizes the royal progresses of three distinct cultures to illustrate this point, “ In particular royal progresses (of which, where it exists, coronation is but the first) locate the society’s center and affirm its connection with transcendent things by stamping a territory with ritual signs of dominance,” (16).

Each of Geertz’s case studies produce two forces interacting with one another. Elizabeth Tudor’s England utilized virtue and allegory. Her legitimacy and charisma rested on her ability to become the living representation of virtue, “The center of the center, Elizabeth not only accepted its transformation of her into a moral idea, she actively cooperated in it. It was out of this—her willingness to stand proxy, not for God, but for the virtues he ordained, and especially for the protestant version of them – that her charisma grew,” (19). This virtue was maintained through allegory, “It was allegory that lent her magic, and allegory repeated that sustained it,” (16). By traveling throughout the English kingdom, through royal progresses, and the ceremonies and rituals contained within, Elizabeth reinforced her legitimacy, “The charisma that the center had fashioned for her out of the popular symbolisms of virtue, faith, and authority she carried … to the countryside, making London as much the capital of Britain’s political imagination as it was of its government,” (16).

In contrast, Hayam Wuruk’s Indonesia featured the forces of splendor and hierarchy. Indic culture of the 1300’s regarded the world as a “less than improvable place and royal pageantry was hierarchical and mystical in spirit, not pious and didactic,” (20). This difference results from differing cultural constructs. The Indonesian State was to be a replica of the cosmos. The king existed as a mediator between gods and men. When laid out into a schematic form, this structure resembles a collection of nested circles, with the king at the center, “At the center and apex the king; around him and at his feet, the palace; around the palace, the capital ‘reliable, submissive’; around the capital, the realm, ‘helpless, bowed, stooping, humble’; around the realm, ‘getting ready to show obedience,’ the outside world – disposed in compass-point order, a configuration of nested circles that depicts not just the structure of society but, a political mandala, that of the universe as a whole,” (20). As with the English example, royal progresses brought the ruling elite to the people, carrying with them the appropriate structure that society was to replicate, “In fourteenth-century Java, the center was the point at which such tension disappeared in a blaze of cosmic symmetry; and the symbolism was, consequently, exemplary and mimetic: the king displayed and the subjects copied,” (23). While differing greatly with Elizabeth’s virtue and allegory, similar processes and ideas are at work in the Indonesian model, “Like the Elizabethan, the Majapahit progress set forth the regnant themes of political thought—the court mirrors the world the world should imitate; society flourishes to the degree that it assimilates this fact; and it is the office of the king, wielder of the mirror, to assure that it does,” (23). However, unlike Elizabethan England, Indonesia’s structure incorporates analogy and not allegory, “ It is analogy, not allegory, that lends magic here,” (23). Thus the aesthetic splendor of the progress lends Gajah Mada charisma, but what sustains this charisma is the hierarchy it produces, which is nothing more than an analogy of the larger cosmos.

Geertz’s third and final example of Morocco exploits the political forces of movement and energy. According to Geertz’s description, Morocco’s process of charisma and its sustenance resembled the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, “In traditional Morocco … personal power, the ability to make things happen the way one wants them to happen – to prevail – was itself the surest sign of grace,” (23). Unlike the previous two examples, the center in Morocco did not reside in one place. Instead, the center constantly searched for a new location, “The kings did not even keep a single capital but instead shifted the court restlessly among the so-called Imperial Cities – Fez, Marrakech, Meknes, and Rabat – in which none they were really home. Motion was the rule, not the exception; and though a king could not, like God, quite be everywhere at once, he could try …” (25). This structure saw conflict as a pure expression of the natural order, “Political life is a clash of personalities everywhere, and in even the most focused of states lesser figures resist the center, but in Morocco such struggle was looked upon not as something in conflict with the order of things, disruptive of form or subversive of virtue, but as its purest expression. Society was agnostic – a tournament of wills; so then was kingship and the symbolism exalting it,” (24). Thus, the king’s center needed to constantly engage other smaller centers (local rulers), “The mobility of the king was thus a central element in his power; the realm was unified— the very partial degree that it was unified and was a realm – by a restless searching-out of contact, mostly agonistic, with literally hundreds of lesser centers of power within it,” (26). This charisma lasted as long as the king’s energy could sustain him. Once the energy is spent, movement is lost. Once movement is lost, the claim to kingship vanishes, “What chastity was to Elizabeth, and magnificence to Hayam Wuruk, energy was to Mulay Ismail or Mulay Hasan; as long as he could keep moving, chastening an opponent here, advancing an ally there, the king could make believable his claim to a sovereignty conferred by God. But only that long,” (26).

So what purpose does Geertz’s study serve since he himself notes its limitations at the articles’ conclusion, “All the golden grasshoppers and bees are gone; monarchy, in the true sense of the word, was ritually destroyed on one scaffold in Whitehall in 1649 and on another in the Place de la Revolution in 1793; the few fragments left in the third world are just that – fragments …” (30). Geertz argues that while social structures and their expressions alter over time, the driving forces that give them life have not, “Thrones may be out of fashion, and pageantry too; but political authority still requires a cultural frame in which to define itself and advance its claims, and so does opposition to it,” (30). Geertz’s arguments hold incredible saliency. He has an incredible ability of perception across cultures. Geertz conceptualizes and contextualizes structures, social and political, so convincingly and thoroughly that often the reader is left amazed rather than inquisitive. However, how would Geertz explain the charisma of revolutionaries or separatist movements? Undoubtedly, he points to a section contained in the articles’ conclusion, “This is the paradox of charisma; that though it is rooted in the sense of being near the heart of things, of being caught up in the realm of the serious, a sentiment that is felt most characteristically and continuously by those who in fact dominate social affairs, who ride in the progresses and grant the audiences, its most flamboyant expressions tend to appear among people at some distance from the center, indeed often enough at a rather enormous distance, who want very much to be closer,” (31). However, does this passage refer to such movements or does it refer to protests and uprisings, which differ, greatly from revolution or separation? Moreover, would not a separatist movement signal a desire to be farther away from a political center that it considers illegitimate? Additionally, if Geertz were to apply such a study to today’s cultures, what would replace the royal progress as the focus of study?

What about Geertz’s ideas applied to the French Revolution? One would assume that France would share a similar structure to that of England, however its Catholic background and “masculine” political culture (as Lynn Hunt would describe it) seemingly make France an altogether different beast. What two forces are at interplay? Chartier might argue that the sacralization of the king might fit into this discussion, while Lefebvre might point to a slightly less then rigid class hierarchy.

The revolution’s complexity complicates the application of Geertz’s theory; however, Geertz’s framework applies to the French example. Perhaps, as noted by Professor Darlene Levy, the two forces at play in revolutionary France are Republic and Virtue. Yet, unlike the English example, which bases its conceptions of virtue on a Protestant model, the revolution’s virtue displays a personality imbued with secularism. Virtue is derived not from the monarch, but rather the “nation” as a collective whole. Since the Revolution moves in stages the center ultimately shifts. Moreover, the changing nature of the Revolution and its own uncertainty about its identity make applying Geertz’s framework more difficult. While those close to the political center at the Revolution’s outset are the Bourgousie, by the time of the Terror, it has shifted to Robiespierre (The Incorruptible, the ultimate symbol of virtue) and the Committee of Public Safety. Instead of royal progresses, one of two ritualistic ceremonies may be substituted. During the Revolution’s initial stages, oration and public assembly serve as the political compass for determining the center. As Timothy Tackett pointed out in his work Becoming a Revolutionary, those who could be heard over the din in the National Assembly were the individuals wielding political power. The ability to speak effectively in the public sphere, whether through a speech or public debate in the Assembly, distinguished the political leaders of the early revolution.

However, as the Terror unfolds, the political compass points in a new direction. The emphasis on virtue and the need to sacrifice for this virtue may be located in the guillotine. Michael Foucalt discusses the traditions and implications of torture and execution in his groundbreaking work, Discipline and Punishment. As Foucalt points out, execution and torture had been public events for sometime, however in the French case when the guillotine spills blood, it is for the sake of the nation’s virtue. Crowds witnessing these events represent the “republic” or the indivisible nation made up of many, yet consisting in a solitary “general will” or single body, that being France. This violence purifies France. The Revolutionaries argue that the Terror’s bloodletting will cleanse and regenerate France into a new virtious country with a new political center. However, one could argue that popular violence served as the “royal progress”, thus allowing the “nation” to exert its “virtue” through its actions as a collective entity, therefore representing its second force “republic”. This conception places more agency on the masses, since executions were determined by revolutionary tribunals, not necessarily reflective of the popular masses.
While Paris failed to serve as a polarizing political force before the Revolution, once the Revolution begins, like London in the English example, Paris becomes the physical political center. Differences remain between the provinces and Paris, yet political power flows outward from Paris (from the center to the periphery). The changing nature of the political center reflects the changing nature of the French Revolution. Without an established identity a political center is difficult to create.

While some might argue that Geertz examples are antiquated, Geertz answers such criticisms adequately, “no matter how peripheral, ephemeral, or free-floating the charismatic figure we may be concerned with … we must begin with the center and the symbols and conceptions that prevail there if we are to understand him and what he means … the enfoldment of political life in general conceptions of how reality is put together did not disappear with dynastic continuity and divine right. Who gets What, When, Where and How is as culturally distinctive a view of what politics is, and in its own way as transcendental, as the defense of ‘wisdom and rightwiseness,’ the celebration of ‘The Daymaker’s Equal’ or the capricious flow of baraka,” (31). Societies and cultures change but these sorts of structures reinvent and rebuild themselves. The French Revolution embodies this reinvention. Geertz’s model provides a reliable methodology to determine such structures. Moreover, his worldview deserves acknowledgement, since often writers limit themselves to Western constructs and thought. However he places such emphasis on the royal progresses that one is left wondering how accurate assertions can be coming from what seems such an obscure source. Yet, this sounds quite modernist, since royal progresses were in all likelihood of great importance considering the lack of media, communication, and transportation of the historical periods discussed. Ultimately, Geertz’s arguments are convincing and compelling.

[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Category:Clifford Geertz]]
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[[Category:Article Summaries]]

The Order of Things

2017-02-28T22:04:21Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = The Order of Things
| title_orig = Les Mots et les choses
| translator =
| image = [[File:The Order of Things.jpg|200px]]
| image_caption = The 1994 Vintage Books edition
| author = Michel Foucault
| illustrator =
| cover_artist =
| country = France
| language = French
| series =
| subject = Philosophy]]
| genre =
| publisher = Éditions Gallimard
| pub_date = 1966
| english_pub_date = 1970
| media_type = Paperback
| pages = 404
| isbn = 2-07-022484-8
| oclc= 256703056
| preceded_by =
| followed_by =
}}

Michel Foucault provides a dense, possibly inaccessible review of the development of sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century “human sciences.” Though many of Foucault’s works require reflection and interpretation, The Order of Things and the language it employs at times seems nearly impenetrable. Still, with that noted, Foucault’s work offers the reader insights into the nature of the development of the human sciences from natural history and biology to linguistics to history and anthropology among numerous other disciplines.

Perhaps one of the book’s main points revolves around the Classical age’s episteme and its dependence on representation. According to Foucault, the “Classical Age” created a table or picture based on the representations of three fields: natural history, language, and biology. Between them they establish a sort of matrix upon which knowledge of the age rested, “The nature of things, their coexistence, the way in which they are linked together and communicate is nothing other than their resemblance. And that resemblance is visible only in the network of sings that crossed the world from one end to the other.” (29) How does Foucault specifically define this matrix, “the Classical episteme can be defined in its most general arrangement in terms of the articulated system of mathesis, a taxinomia, and a genetic analysis. The sciences always carry within themselves the project … of an exhaustive ordering of the world; they are always directed, too, towards the discovery of simple elements and their progressive combination; and at their centre they form a table on which knowledge is displayed in a system contemporary with itself.” (74). Thus, the table is created. Foucault does seem to privilege language or at least consider it somewhat different in nature than the other fields he engages, “The history of various languages is no lnger anything more than a question of erosion or accident, introduction, meetings, and the mingling of various elements; it has no law, no progress, no necessity proper to it.” For Foucault, language unlike several others areas does not illustrate an historicism, “Time has become interior to language.” Continuing in this vein, he notes developments in language seem more the result of forces such as trade, migrations, and war, “languages evolve in accordance with the effects of migrations, victories, and defeats, fashions, and commerce; but not under impulsion of any historicity possessed by the languages themselves. They do not obey an internal principle of development; they simply unfold representation and their elements in a linear sequence.” (91) In some ways, Foucault almost seems to suggest languages develop more organically, but this is conjecture since he also appears to question its linear nature. Like latter writers such as Jameson and Harvey, Foucault eventually turns to economics. In these early centuries “the concepts of money, price, value, circulation, and market were not regarded, in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in terms of a shadowy furniture, but as part of a rigorous and general epistemological arrangement. It is this arrangement that sustains the ‘analysis of wealth’ in its overall necessity. The analysis of wealth is to political economy, what general grammar is to philology and what natural history is to biology.” (168) Economics does not unfold itself in the same ways as his other categories because of their tie to practice and institutions. [note Foucault predates works by Harvey and Jameson but he seems to be an influence on them even if I can’t articulate how right now] Comparing it his previous examples Foucault points out, “A single piece of metal can, in the course of time and according to the individuals that receive it, represent several equivalent things (an object, work, a measure of wheat, a portion of income) – just as a common noun has the power to represent several things, or a taxonomic character has the power to represent several individuals, several species, several genera, etc. But whereas the character can cover a larger generality only by becoming simpler, money can represent more kinds of wealth only by circulating faster.” (185) Foucault also argues that money’s value remains determined by consumption not production, “Value arises only when good have disappeared; and work functions as an expenditure: it turns the subsistence which it has itself consumed into a price.” (194)

What brought this Classical age to its eventual conclusion? Foucault addresses this conundrum, “Language is simply the representation of words; nature is simply the representation of beings; need is simply the representation of needs. The end of Classical thought – and of the episteme that made general grammar, natural history, and the science of wealth possible – will coincide with the decline of representation, or rather with the emancipation of language, of the living being, and of need, with regard to representation.” (209) With the closing decades of the eighteenth century came change. Discontinuities arose. The table no longer sufficed as “the general area of knowledge is no longer that of identities and differences, that of non-quantitative orders, that of a universal characterization, of a general taxinomnia, of a non-measurable mathesis, but an area made up of organic structures, that is, of internal relations between elements whose totality performs a function… these organic structures are discontinuous … they do not form a table of unbroken simultaneities, but that certain of them are on the same level whereas others form series or linear sequences.” (218) In this way, analogy and succession become the hallmarks of ordering various “empiricities”. From the 1800s on, history “deployed … the analogies that connect distinct organic structures to one another. “ (219) Of course, Foucault’s history places laws on the “analysis of production, the analysis of organically structured beings, and lastly, on the analysis of linguistic groups. History gives place to analogical organic structures, just a Order opened the way to successive identities and differences.”(219)

Ideology fails to emancipate man from many of the difficulties the above formations Foucault explores. It never “questions the foundation, the limits or the root of representation; it scans the domain of representation in general; it determines the necessary sequences that appear there; it defines the lingks htat provide its connections … It situates all knowledge in the space of representations, and by scanning that space it formulates the knowledge of the laws that provide its organization. It is in a sense the knowledge of all knowledge. But this duplication upon which it is based does not cause it to emerge from the field of representation …” (241). This duplication extends to various areas infecting the space of analysis such that it lost its “autonomy.” The table now serves as a superficial layer of knowing. Knowledge’s fundamental form morphed, “What changed at the turn of the century and underwent an irremediable modification, was knowledge itself as an anterior and indivisible mode of being between the knowing subject and the object of knowledge … “ (252). The taxonomies which previous centuries used to scan the world for “knowledge” non longer operated on this ordered relationship, “The classification of living beings is no longer to be found in the great expanse of order; the possibility of classification now arises from the depths of life, from those elements most hidden from view. Before, the living being was a locality of natural classification; now, the fact of being classifiable is a property of t helving being. So the possibility of a general taxonomia disappears …” (268). In terms of language, analogies of roots “allows for kinship between languages”, Foucault continues noting historicity had been introduced to languages through discontinuities, “the same way as into that of living beings.” (292) However, he cautions differences between the two remain, “The latter [living beings] have no true history by means of a certain realtion between their functions and the conditions of their existence.” (293) [doesn’t this seem a mirroring of language’s existence under the classical period, I mean is language somehow diff. under this new structure than its past iterations?] Like postmodern thinkers, Foucault conceptualizes much of this “new knowledge” in spatial terms, “The domain of the modern episteme should be represented rather as a volume of space open in three dimensions.” (347) [ in a way, how different is this from the classical order/ matrix? These dimensions seem relevant or dependent on each other right]. These new “human sciences are not … an analysis of what man is by nature; but rather an analysis that extends from what man is in his positivity (living, speaking, laboring being) to what enables this same being to know (or seek to know) what life is, in what the essence of labor and its laws consist, and in what way his able to speak. The human sciences thus occupy the distance that separates (though w/c connecting them) biology, economics, and philology form that which gives them possibility in the very being of man” (353) Of course, the human sciences remain hidebound to representation just as much as the Classical Order. Moreover, “the whole configuration of knowledge has been modified and they came into being only to the degree to which there appeared, with man, a being who did not exist before in the field of episteme.” (363) One might suppose that Foucault has located a new matrix on which human knowledge now rests “all knowledge is rooted in a life, a society, and a language that have a history; and it is in that very history that knowledge finds the element enabling it to communicate with other forms of life, other types of society, other significations: that is why historicism always implies a certain philosophy, or at least a certain methodology.” (373)
[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Category:Michel Foucault]]
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[[Category:Book Summaries]]

Museums Matters

2017-02-28T22:03:47Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = Museums Matters: In Praise of the Encyclopedic Museum
| author = James Cuno
| publisher = University of Chicago Press
| pub_date = September 3, 2013
| pages = 164
| isbn = 978-0226100913
| image = [[File:Museums Matter.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}
Museums Matters: In Praise of the Encyclopedic Museum (University of Chicago Press, 2013) is a book dedicated to the rise of the encyclopedic museum from its beginnings in the British Museum of History to the subsequent variations of its legacy. Cuno consciously separates his argument in a series of lecture style chapters devoted to styles of public museums and how they serve the purpose of creating an educated and culturally aware public.

Cuno, through this book, hopes to foster an argument in support of the encyclopedic museum as a “truly cosmopolitan institution, promoting tolerance, understanding, and a shared sense of history”.

==Contents==
===The Enlightenment Museum to The Cosmopolitan Museum===

The Encyclopedic Museum arrives during the Age of Enlightenment. At the behest of Sir Hans Sloan, a polymath from Northern Ireland, as per his will, his collection of “natural and artificial curiosities, precious stones, books of dryed [sic] samples of plants, miniatures, drawing, prints, medals, printed and manuscript books” were sold to the British government. Valued at over 5.3 Million USD today, this diverse collection became the basis of the British Museum of History’s holdings in 1753. As a direct result of his will, the Museum Act of 1753 was written and signed into action to govern the museum, its collections and personnel. Cuno, uses this as a clear starting point for the accounting of history through carefully preserved and displayed artifacts.

The following two chapters focus on the evolution of the public museum with diverse collections. The first iteration comes as a direct result of the need to curate the array of objects. The creation of a systematic way in which to both display and produce hierarchy through grouping and assumed interest. The Discursive Museum that emerged in the 19th century extends its theoretical debate to modern museum discourse on the need and/or implications of applying an interpretation or construction onto an object. This even reaches into the layering of personal stories or metaphors unconsciously placed into arrangement and narratives of objects.

Franz Boaz in 1887, a curator and anthropologist, found the need for a better standard of exhibit. Boaz wished for the movement away from laying objects out in cases as specimens and towards providing cultural context to each object thereby giving each object a prominence it could not have had grouped amongst like items or items from similar places which was the system of display at the time. Boaz argument was to “emphasize the object in itself or to present it as part of larger discursive narrative”. This is an argument he shared with the 19th century French poet and essayist, Paul Valery. The case for depth of context and not just pleasurable sights in museums structures modern museum theory.

The book then moves into the Cosmopolitan Museum model which he simplifies through the comparison of walking through a museum and traveling. Cuno uses travel (especially world travel) as a means of communicating or "translating" the experience of exploring a museum, encyclopedic or not, where we might encounter objects from
different areas and cultures. This fuels the cosmopolitan idea of a bond between all peoples no matter location, beliefs or ideals and that though there are differences using this as a way to fuel discourse and create meaningful narratives can only strengthen the museum and human experiences. He uses a series of disconnected objects to create a case for acknowledgement of a globalized world and the museum's responsibility of supporting this as the very basis of encyclopedic museum collections is a wild geographic array of objects.

===Museums and Nation Building===
In the first chapter of the book Cuno follows his introduction of the birth of the British Museum of History with the subsequent founding of the Louvre in 1792. This museum was built to “demonstrate the nation’s great riches” and show the glory and prowess of the French Republic. Whereas Sir Sloane imparted the term that the collection and its home belong to the nation and not just the King, the Louvre was fashioned to create a very controlled narrative of the nation to which it belonged.

Cuno uses this as an entryway to his later fourth chapter on the Imperial Museum. The use of museums as a political tool by way of communicating a storyline that extols the competency of the government in all its ways persists to this day as countries like China and Russia and The United States continues imperial stratagems we closely relate with the 19th century and earlier. Cuno argues that the time in which the encyclopedic museum was founded implies an “irrecusably linked” identity with the imperial museum. During much of its history the British Museum of History has been attendant on its colonialist identity which Cuno mentions “the knowledge-producing project of the British Empire” is an “instrument of control”. Using case studies from the Archaeology Survey of India allows the reader to explore this theory.

Cuno asks the reader to read into modernity as a cosmopolitan globalized experience where the content and exhibits are interpreted with a mixed view of the world or as a sheltered and inwardly faced exhibit of the host country’s culture, ideas and history. Cuno argues for a cosmopolitan view of the world which cultural institutions like museums should maintain and cultivate.

==Miscellaneous==
The book evolved from Cuno’s 2009 Campbell Lectures at Rice University.

[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Category:James Cuno]]
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[[Category:Book Summaries]]

The Long Twentieth Century

2017-02-28T22:03:27Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times
| author = Giovanni Arrighi
| publisher = Verso
| pub_date = 2010-02-16
| pages = 432
| isbn = 1844673049
| image = [[File:The Long Twentieth Century.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}
Historians have a habit of expanding and contracting time to suit their schema – there is the “short twentieth century,” the “long sixties,” and so forth, to capture a cultural or political epoch that does not quite fit a temporal boundary like a decade or century. Americans may be more prone to this than others, given our obsession with defining history in terms of decades, even when the actual events and trends of history don’t conform – certainly, the years between 1965 and 1975 or 1978 and 1988 seem to have more in common than the years of the Sixties or Seventies do as a cohesive unit. Similarly, the depressive, grungey early Nineties have never seemed to be of a piece with the teenybopping, tech-booming late Nineties.

The late Giovanni Arrighi, a star of the political economy scene at SUNY-Binghamton and Johns Hopkins, was the kind of guy who had no taste for decadism. A Marxist with an eye for the big picture, he followed the lead of Fernand Braudel by framing history in terms of grand processes and huge tracts of time. He also collaborated with Immanuel Wallerstein, the sociologist who coined the term “world-systems” to describe the coherent, interrelated web of dependency and exploitation that characterizes the world economy in any given era; as the balance of powers and the sources of wealth shift, one world-system gives way to a new one. Arrighi belonged to the school of thought that saw incidents like the Cold War or the Scramble for Africa as mere political episodes in the much bigger scheme of capitalism’s development since it emerged as an economic system in the Italian city-states of the Renaissance and gradually moved its center of power to the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and finally the United States. “The long twentieth century” was the era when the US rose and fell as the fulcrum in the capitalist world economy, with 1970 allegedly the moment when the possibilities of US power went into terminal decline and American capitalism turned from productive growth to cannibalize its own wealth through financial speculation – just as the British and Dutch had done before them.

If this sounds heady and grandiose stuff, that’s because it is. The book is often paired with Eric Hobsbawm’s The Age of Extremes, published in the same year, the fourth in his brilliant series on world history since the eighteenth century. Hobsbawm coined the idea of the “short twentieth century,” arguing that a distinct historical epoch stretched from 1914 (the beginning of the world war that would spawn the Bolshevik Revolution) and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Everything after was the start of a new era, while the outbreak of WWI shattered the belle époque of capitalist expansion and relative peace that had reigned in Europe for much of the late nineteenth century (i.e. “the long nineteenth century”). In the same way that you might say the Sixties didn’t really begin until the March on Washington or the Beatles performed on Ed Sullivan, the twentieth century did not really begin until the triumph of Communism in Russia began to define the course of world events for the rest of era. For Hobsbawm, a committed partisan of the British Communist Party, history was defined ultimately in political terms, in the troubled life of the Marxist project and the ultimate failure of its contest with Western capitalism. As a Marxist, he still saw big economic processes driving change all over the world, but as a historian he framed time politically.

For Arrighi, long economic cycles of growth, expansion and speculation were what really shaped history, while the fortunes of presidents, nations and empires unfolded as a rich pageant in the foreground. For instance, the Vietnam War was an epic tragedy cooked up by politicians and generals in Washington, DC, not by vast economic forces; but failure in the war was the midwife of a near-inevitable decline, which showed that the US economic model had exhausted its productive possibilities and American hegemony over the world’s political and economic affairs was no longer assured. In an age of rising competition and diminishing returns, “financialization” ensued, as money was reinvested in money over and over again, creating the fictitious, debt-driven kind of economic growth of the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush years – the bubble that just burst, with such ruinous effects on people throughout the world.

Arrighi wrote The Long Twentieth Century in 1994, and it has justifiably become considered a classic. By tracing capitalism’s arc from Genoa to Foggy Bottom, he seemed to forecast the epic collapse of 2008, pointing out the flimsy basis of much economic growth since the crisis of the 1970s. Yes, advances in telecommunications, particularly the Internet, did generate real gains in productivity during the 1990s, which Arrighi could not have foreseen when he was writing his magnum opus (gains that Tiny Tower and Facebook are steadily trying to erase); also, the opening of the Second World, the old Communist domain behind the Iron Curtain, created new vistas for capitalist accumulation that had previously been unavailable, offering a temporary, feel-good shot-in-the-arm to the world system. Capitalism is still hunting for the next source of unexploited wealth, and in the last book of his career, Adam Smith in Beijing, Arrighi gave a rather optimistic take on the shift of capitalist power from the West to the East, the beginning of a new and different cycle of production and speculation. (The new center of the world economy would not be Japan, as expected in the 1980s, but China.)

Arrighi offered a grand synthesis of Marx, Braudel, Wallerstein, Schumpeter and many others who have tried to figure out how capitalism works; he offers a radically different take than Judith Stein, who also wrote about the shift of the US economy toward finance in the 1970s and 1980s but attributed the change almost entirely to political machinations and the ins-and-outs of tax policy. Surely the amount of depreciation that the IRS lets companies write off on their manufacturing equipment is not the driving force of economic history – important, yes, but not the lever that moved the world.

On the other hand, Arrighi’s approach makes the policies of LBJ, Carter, or Reagan seem completely incidental to the grander sweep of economic forces, where one politician gets credit for the much longer and almost predetermined turns of economic expansion and contraction that happen to occur during his term in office. I have heard conservatives like Rush Limbaugh argue that it takes “twelve years” for economic policies to have an impact – the point being that the economic boom under Clinton was obviously the result of Reagan’s policies – but Arrighi is thinking in far bigger terms, ones that make the twists of economics and domestic policy seem even crueler and more capricious. Certainly Barack Obama seems to be the prisoner of global economic forces beyond his control. As Arrighi would have it, he is merely overseeing the imperial decline of the US, where the animal spirits of capitalism have no more life in them and can no longer reawaken the domestic economy.

This approach is helpful to the extent that it causes to take a step back and realize that every law that is passed or every election that is won or every social movement that emerges (hi, Black Power; hello, Tea Party) is the most important factor defining the subsequent course of events. As Braudel sought to show in his epic study, The Mediterranean, time moves at the level of daily politics, larger-scale economic shifts, and much vaster climatic and geological change all at once. But reading Arrighi one wonders what difference one president or one citizen can do to change anything, seeing as we are caught up in the centuries-long grinding of world capitalism. Not to get all chaos theory on the poor readers who have made it this far, but one really good sniper in Zawiyah could take out a number of Libyan rebels, who might have been crucial for planning and executing an assault on Tripoli, which gives Muammar Gaddafi enough breathing room to shore up his forces and survive until NATO allies lose heart and give up the campaign, which humiliates Barack Obama and David Cameron and adds to the political misfortunes that ultimately result in their failure in the next election, which… you get the point.

There is some room, but not a lot, for such a sniper in The Long Twentieth Century. As excellent as the book is, it leaves a reader asking, “Is that all there is?” It also calls to mind Marx’s famous saying that men make their own history, but not under circumstances of their own choosing. Arrighi’s worldview might be better rephrased as, Economics makes history, but not with the men of its own choosing. In any case, there might be room for one really good sniper to make history in the long twenty-first century that has only now begun.

[[Category:Global History]]

[[Category:Wikify]]
[[Category:Book Summaries]]
[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Category:Giovanni Arrighi]]

Modernity at Large

2017-02-28T22:03:10Z

Emeehan: Merging theory category

{{Infobox book
| name = Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization
| author = Arjun Appardurai
| publisher = University Of Minnesota Press
| pub_date = 1996
| pages = 248
| isbn = 0816627932
| image = [[File:Modernity at Large.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}
The rise of electronic media, global migrations of peoples, diverse financial systems and tools, along with other developing factors have led numerous academics to openly question the efficacy of the nation state. In dialogue with such discourses, Arjun Appardurai’s work, ''Mordernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization'' declares that “the nation-state, as a complex modern political form, is on its last legs.”(19). Built on the theoretical underpinnings of Foucault and Habermas while drawing upon the work of numerous anthropologists before him most notably Benedict Anderson’s ''Imagined Communities'' and Clifford Geertz’s focus on meaning and representation, Modernity at Large attempts to incorporate the “work of the imagination as a constitutive feature of modern subjectivity.” (3)

Imagination as a source of agency constructing new transnational identities that no longer remain bound to nation-states functions as neither an “emanicpatory” or “disciplining” agent, but rather “a space of contestation in which individuals and groups seek to annex the global into their own practices of the modern.” (4) Eschewing culture as a noun , Appadurai favors the adjectival form identifying “culturalism” which fundamentally refers to “identity politics mobilized at the level of the nation-state.”(15). Constructing a theoretical apparatus made up of five distinctive “cultural flows” consisting of of ethnoscapes, mediascapes, financescapes, ideoscapes, and technoscapes, Appadurai suggests that though at times in agreement, these “scapes” frequently relate to one another disjunctively. People’s, nation-states, and others marshall public spheres and counterpublics to reimagine their own organizational or ethnic identities or as the author notes, they create “scripts” that allow for “imagined worlds” which may apply to their own existence or “those of others living in other places” (35).

Deterritorialization combined with the rise of electronic media contributes to the unmooring of the nation-state from traditionally defined nation based identities. Globalization unfolds in various ways, affecting various peoples in equally diverse manners. Moreover, the process of globalization fetishizes localities as “the globally dispersed forces that actually drive the production process” Appadurai cautions anthropologists, sociologists and historians to avoid imposing western historical models of capital development or democracy, noting that these new developments require more flexible and insightful analysis, since the growth of such concepts need not occur identically to European or American examples. Additionally, ''Modernity at Large'' critiques traditional western representations of ethnic violence as forms of “primordialism” or “tribalism” arguing such formations rest “crucially on the view of certain populations and polities as infantile and relies implicitly on some sort of germ theory of ethnic strife in Western democracies.” (143)

''Modernity at Large'' clearly posits a transnational future but fails to suggest what new forms of international or transnational governmental or political developments appear adequately sustainable to maintain such structures. Additionally, Appadurai’s work traffics in language that few lay readers would find accessible, needlessly complicating arguments that could be stated more clearly and concisely.

==Quotes from the original write up's footnotes==

“the noun form has to do with its implication that culture is come kind of object, thing, or substance, whether physical or metaphysical.” (12)
“it brings laboring populations into the lower-class sectors and spaces of relatively wealthy societies, while sometimes creating exaggerated and intensified senses of criticism or attachment to politics in the home state.”
This generates alienation (in Marx's sense) twice intensified, for its social sense is now compounded by a complicated spatial dynamic that is increasingly global.” (42)

[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]
[[Category:Arjun Appardurai]]
[[Category:Wikify]]
[[Category:Book Summaries]]

Category:Theory and Methodology

2017-02-28T22:01:54Z

Emeehan: Created blank page

Category:Global History

2017-02-28T22:01:20Z

Emeehan: Created blank page

Category:Book Summaries

2017-02-28T22:00:53Z

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Category:Immanuel Wallerstein

2017-02-28T22:00:25Z

Emeehan: Created page with "This page includes a list of book summaries of Immanuel Wallerstein's work, as well as works that make use of Wallerstein's theories."

This page includes a list of book summaries of Immanuel Wallerstein's work, as well as works that make use of Wallerstein's theories.

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-28T21:59:23Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series = a John Hope Franklin Center Book
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague. Wallerstein argues that the capitalist modern world system originated around 1650, and that the system is reaching limits which will bring about a crisis which will resolve in the creation of a new world-system.
==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

==The Modern World-System==

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view a world-system is defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized <abbr title="Its all about the Benjamins">"endless accumulation of capital,"</abbr> and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally; one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==The Path Forward==
The final chapter of the book, or the first depending upon what order the reader selects, looks critically at the modern world-system. Wallerstein sees the current system reaching asymptotic limits which include urbanization, resource consumption, and waste generation. He predicts a transition period marked by instability and increased violence as people continue to seek to benefit from the extant system while simultaneously pushing it inexorably towards its limits.
==Sources Cited==


[[Category:Theory and Methodology]]

[[Category: Global History]]

[[Category:Immanuel Wallerstein]]

[[Category: Book Summaries]]

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-28T21:57:50Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series = a John Hope Franklin Center Book
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague. Wallerstein argues that the capitalist modern world system originated around 1650, and that the system is reaching limits which will bring about a crisis which will resolve in the creation of a new world-system.
==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

==The Modern World-System==

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view a world-system is defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized <abbr title="Its all about the Benjamins">"endless accumulation of capital,"</abbr> and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally; one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==The Path Forward==
The final chapter of the book, or the first depending upon what order the reader selects, looks critically at the modern world-system. Wallerstein sees the current system reaching asymptotic limits which include urbanization, resource consumption, and waste generation. He predicts a transition period marked by instability and increased violence as people continue to seek to benefit from the extant system while simultaneously pushing it inexorably towards its limits.
==Sources Cited==


[[Category:Theory and Methodology|Theory_and_Methodology]]

[[Category: Global History|Global_History]]

[[Category:Immanuel Wallerstein]]

[[Category: Book Summaries|Guide_to_the_Literature]]

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-28T21:55:48Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series = a John Hope Franklin Center Book
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague. Wallerstein argues that the capitalist modern world system originated around 1650, and that the system is reaching limits which will bring about a crisis which will resolve in the creation of a new world-system.
==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

==The Modern World-System==

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view a world-system is defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized <abbr title="Its all about the Benjamins">"endless accumulation of capital,"</abbr> and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally; one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==The Path Forward==
The final chapter of the book, or the first depending upon what order the reader selects, looks critically at the modern world-system. Wallerstein sees the current system reaching asymptotic limits which include urbanization, resource consumption, and waste generation. He predicts a transition period marked by instability and increased violence as people continue to seek to benefit from the extant system while simultaneously pushing it inexorably towards its limits.
==Sources Cited==


[[Category:Theory]]

[[Category: Global History]]

[[Category:Immanuel Wallerstein]]

[[Category: Guide to the Literature | Book Summaries]]

[[Category:Book Reviews]]

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-28T21:54:16Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series = a John Hope Franklin Center Book
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague. Wallerstein argues that the capitalist modern world system originated around 1650, and that the system is reaching limits which will bring about a crisis which will resolve in the creation of a new world-system.
==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

==The Modern World-System==

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view a world-system is defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized <abbr title="Its all about the Benjamins">"endless accumulation of capital,"</abbr> and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally; one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==The Path Forward==
The final chapter of the book, or the first depending upon what order the reader selects, looks critically at the modern world-system. Wallerstein sees the current system reaching asymptotic limits which include urbanization, resource consumption, and waste generation. He predicts a transition period marked by instability and increased violence as people continue to seek to benefit from the extant system while simultaneously pushing it inexorably towards its limits.
==Sources Cited==


[[Category:Theory]]

[[Category: World History]]

[[Category:Immanuel Wallerstein]]

[[Category:Book Summaries]]

The Theoretical Foundations of Transnationalism: A Primer

2017-02-28T21:52:05Z

Emeehan:

Though certainly not a recent invention, the proliferation of transnational histories over the past two decades successfully shifted scholars’ historical gaze to new concepts of membership, the impact of quickly disseminated technologies, the transformation of local, national, and international economics, and melting of traditional nation-state centered frames. Like other moments in historiography, the “transnational turn” as Micol Siegel labels it, illustrates the influences of the period. Increased flows of labor and goods ignorant of national borders, images shot across continents and oceans tying diasporas more closely to their place of origin despite distances of thousands of miles separating the two, or the undeniable influence of, not necessarily new but more powerful, multinationals. All these factors and more serve to alter not only historians’ view of history, but suggest several points of inquiry. Of these numerous questions, four serve as this paper’s central focus. How have historians accounted for the nation-state and its interplay with the mass migrations and technological innovations of the 20th and 21st century? What are the new economic structures and flows that underwrite the transnational approach and what are their attendant meanings for historical actors and scholars alike? How has transnationalism affected perceptions of space, time and movement? What has this all meant for historians sense of self and their work?

== I. The Nation-State, Borders, and Race ==

In his article, “But a Local Phase of a World Problem: Black History’s Global Vision, 1883-1950”, Robin D.G. Kelley explored the various ways African, Caribbean/West Indian, and African American scholars long embraced the transnational approach to history. Longstanding diasporas of black communities created through forced labor, slavery, migration and imperialism served to create a world in which black writers sought to circumvent national borders. How much of this is due to past discrimination and second class citizenship serves as a point of debate within Kelley’s piece, however it reveals an important point: American historians attentions to transnationalism have arrived rather late in the day.

Several years before Kelley’s article, Marxist historian Eric Hobsbaum explored the meaning of nationalism and the nation-state in Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, and Reality. Relying heavily on Bendict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, Hobsbaum argues that the standard solidarities based on language, ethnicity, and religion developed only recently as constructs accelerated by post 1880s processes such as Wilson’s declaration of self determination, the decline of imperial empires, and the harsh formation of nation-states out of colonialism’s decline. The “new nationalism” which surfaced illustrated marked differences from earlier variants. First, it abandoned the threshold principle, meaning smaller nation-states proved viable politically. Second, ethnicity/language became central, whereas previously each might account for some stratification internally, both failed to mobilize large numbers of peoples. Third, a political shift rightwards emphasized nation and flag, punishing internal minorities whom might not fit constructed national ideals. As nations grew and economies expanded numerous ethnic groups made choices about which language they chose to identify with for several reasons but significant among them economic and social benefits (i.e. Poles that chose to speak German etc.) National consciousness did develop, however it grew as did numerous other forms of consciousness.

Hobsbawm and Anderson’s questioning of the nation-states “inherent presence” serves as two of the earlier academic salvos aimed at deconstructing national oriented research. The rise of electronic media, global migrations of peoples, diverse financial systems and tools, along with other developing factors have led numerous others to openly question the efficacy of the nation state. Multivalent consciousness, the kind Hobsbawm hints at, emerges as a key pivot for anthropologist Arjun Appadurai in his work Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. For Appadurai, globalization fundamentally changed the flow of capital, peoples, and images. Technology allows for new diasporic connections, ones that allow peoples to remain more closely connected than ever to their origins. This new spatialization or what the author categorizes as deterritorialization combined with the rise of electronic media contributes to the unmooring of the nation-state from traditionally defined nation based identities. Moreover, the process of globalization fetishizes localities as “the globally dispersed forces that actually drive the production process.” Appadurai cautions anthropologists, sociologists and historians to avoid imposing western historical models of capital development or democracy, noting that these new developments requires more flexible and insightful analysis, since the growth of such concepts need not occur identically to European or American examples

George Lipsitz agrees with Appadurai’s “deterritorialization” arguing that connections between cultures and places once intertwined with industrial area political and cultural practices lack the pervasiveness of past iterations. Regarding culture, Lipsitz advises a new and different imagination. In Modernity at Large, Appadurai constructs a theoretical apparatus made up of five distinctive “cultural flows” consisting of of ethnoscapes, mediascapes, financescapes, ideoscapes, and technoscapes. Appadurai suggests that though at times in agreement, these “scapes” frequently relate to one another disjunctively. People’s, nation-states, and others marshall public spheres and counterpublics to reimagine their own organizational or ethnic identities or as the author notes, they create “scripts” that allow for “imagined worlds” which may apply to their own existence or “those of others living in other places”. Lipsitz concurs even quoting Appadurai but taking issue with his underestimation of the continuing power of “local spaces memories and practices, [moreover] his framework does not adequately account for the degree of oppressive centralized power basic to the creation of these new spaces” . Still, Lipsitz certainly agrees with the need for the field of American Studies to engage with “global popular culture”, “We are witnessing an inversion of prestige, a moment when diasporic, nomadic, and fugitive slave cultures from the margins seem to speak more powerfully to present conditions than do metropolitan cultures committed to the congruence of culture culture and place.” Again like Appadurai, Lispitz calls for imagination in realizing the new identities, memberships, and perspectives emerging from the vast migrations of capital, peoples, and technologies.

The expectation of new economic, social, or political developments unfolding in European or Western traditions disrupted the production of credible history. The imposition of one region’s history of development on another resulted in ethnocentric, racially infected, muddled historical understandings. Critically, the construction of discourse plays a role in spreading these flawed understandings. In relation, Stuart Hall traces the creation of a Western European discourse toward the “other”. Borrowing from Edward Said and Michele Foucault, Hall illustrates how Foucault’s ideas regarding discourse and “truth regimes” which Said rightly pointed out constructed an “Orientalism” that fetishized non-western peoples (inscribing on them the difference of inferiority). As Hall notes, the differences Europeans utilized to separate themselves from non-white peoples, often grossly misinterpreted native civilizations as simple or backwards, ignoring the complex social, political and economic structures which served as the foundations of indigenous civilizations. The failure of Europeans to consider an alternate way of producing markets, civil society and government led them to consider such differences as signs of primitiveness. The pervasiveness of such discourse infected the work of even the most visionary theorists, most notably Marx and Weber, who embraced many of the linear progressive assumptions of “The West and the Rest” trope. If Hobsbawm suggests religion as a national organizing principle in the late and early twentieth century remains problematic, Hall argues that in earlier eras the unifying force of Christiandom provided a “co-identity” in which “Europe’s Christian identity – what made its civilization distinct and unique – was in its first instance, essentially religious and Christian.” Only later did Europe develop its geographical, political, and economic identity. Moreover, Hall agrees with Said that the West’s construction of “the Rest” reveals as much about itself as its discourse of the other. Without “the Rest”, the West loses its meaning, a relational identity obscured by its emphasis on perceived difference.

Michele Foucault traces this use of difference from the Classical Age of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to its transformation due to Enlightenment influences in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. According to Foucault, the “Classical Age” created a table or picture based on the representations of three fields: natural history, language, and biology. Between them they establish a sort of matrix upon which knowledge of the age rested, “The nature of things, their coexistence, the way in which they are linked together and communicate is nothing other than their resemblance. And that resemblance is visible only in the network of signs that crossed the world from one end to the other.” With the closing decades of the eighteenth century came change. Discontinuities arose. The table no longer sufficed as “the general area of knowledge is no longer that of identities and differences, that of non-quantitative orders, that of a universal characterization, of a general taxinomnia, of a non-measurable mathesis, but an area made up of organic structures, that is, of internal relations between elements whose totality performs a function… these organic structures are discontinuous … they do not form a table of unbroken simultaneities, but that certain of them are on the same level whereas others form series or linear sequences.” In this way, analogy and succession become the hallmarks of ordering various “empiricities”. From the 1800s on, history “deployed … the analogies that connect distinct organic structures to one another. “ Of course, Foucault’s history places laws on the “analysis of production, the analysis of organically structured beings, and lastly, on the analysis of linguistic groups. History gives place to analogical organic structures, just as Order opened the way to successive identities and differences.”

As Hall works illustrates not only Foucault’s thoughts have impacted transnational orientations. Edward Said’s Orientalism greatly influenced a generation of academics. In Orientalism, Said took Western historians and academics to task for constructing an essentialized view of the Asian and the Middle East which revealed as much about Western culture than those outside of Europe and the Americas. Traversing similar terrain, Said’s Culture and Imperialism explores the role of “culture” in the imperial project and culture’s connections globally, illustrating a clear influence on the thought of Stuart Hall and several other writers of transnational histories. Focusing on the Western Empires of the nineteenth and twentieth century and their cultural productions , Said notes that too few scholars have paid close attention to “the privileged role of culture in the modern imperial experience” noting that its “global reach” continues to “cast a shadow over our own times.”

Much like Arjun Appadurai , Said attempts to illuminate obscured relationships between imperialism and its colonies taking note of imperialism’s obscured presence in the domestic culture of imperializing nations. Said’s literary examples include Thomas Hardy, Albert Camus, and Chalers Dickens among others. Utilizing examples such as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Said illustrates the implicit connections between European protagonists and Europe itself to Asia , Middle East, and the Caribbean. For example, Jane Austen’s protagonists depends on Antigua for their economic livelihood, a dependency often presented by the text as peripheral. As evidence of Hall’s “noble savage” argument, Said notes that Heart of Darkness' Marlowe simultaneously reinforces ideas about non whites and Africa while also expressing a deep skepticism about the project of imperialism itself. Said suggests that the “great texts” of European and American culture must be reexamined such that scholars “give emphasis and voice to what is silent or marginally represented.” In addition, Accordingly, the metropole/periphery formation cast subjectivities on the Middle East and Asia as well as other realms of empire, as places younger Europeans went to “sow their oats”, a wild adventure among irrational non-western peoples. Again, one finds the root of similar observations which Hall puts forth.

If Culture and Imperialism’s first half resonates with critiques by Stuart Hall, its latter portion clearly influenced Micol Siegel’s “Beyond Comparison: Comparative Method after the Transnational Turn.” Siegel explores the flaws in the comparative method from its tendency to juxtapose non-equivalents, reinforcing the tropes of difference Europeans used to cast themselves as superior to its utilization by American historians to justify exceptionalist ideas of the United States. In addition, Siegel accuses the comparative approach of imposing binaries upon its subjects such that nuanced issues of race become affairs of “whiteness” or “blackness”. Moreover, Siegel credits anti-colonial fervor and its global “webs of resistance movements” with laying bare the “metropole’s” dependence on its colonies, a relationship believed to uni-directional was challenged by an interdependent reality. The work of anti and post colonial intellectuals crystallized around such issues, as many enacted a daily existence on the transnational level, often living, writing, and learning in first world cities. This creation of identities and knowledge served to displace the centrality of the nation-state in historical inquiry, “it posits social definition as a boundary setting process that ties identity categories together in the specular play of subject-formation familiar to scholars in many fields.”

Siegel’s attentions to anti and post colonial intellectuals finds companion arguments in Culture and Imperialism. Paying close attention to “cultural resistance” as another way of viewing history, Said explores the works of CLR James, George Antonius, Salmon Rushdie, and Franz Fanon among others. As Said acknowledges, “the post imperial writers of the Third World … bear their past within them”, meaning their works continue to exhibit a connection to imperialism well after its “official” political collapse. However, Said carefully distinguishes earlier writers such as CLR James whose work explore imperialism and its connections more broadly from more recent authors such as Ranajit Guha who focuses more exclusively on cultural productions emanating from imperialism or post-colonial networks of authority.

Relationality undergirds much of Thomas Bender’s arguments and those of his like minded colleagues in Rethinking American History in a Global Age. For too long historians focus on American exceptionalism presented the nation’s history in false terms, apart, unique from all others. Much like Stuart Hall’s Europe, American historical tropes failed to account for the influence of international evens on American domestic life. In its introductory chapter Bender identifies a key aspect informing past scholarly writing, “The near assimilation of history to national history over the course of two centuries following the creation of the nation-state …” Bender and his fellow contributors want the history of nation-states to be “contextualized on an international, even globalized scale.” American histories are “entangled” in those of other nations and peoples. The aforementioned Robin Kelley article (one of the contributions to Rethinking) illustrates this reconceptualization, framing African American history and its writing within an Atlantic World that incorporated Asia, Africa, the West Indies and Caribbean and Europe. Additionally, Bender’s own work A Nation among Nations: America’s Place in World History resituates the United States internationally, not as a dominant player but as one of many competing states. International affairs influenced American domestic policies and discourse, notably Abraham’s Lincoln’s appropriation of nineteenth century liberal ideas to his own conceptions of American freedom and citizenship. A Nation among Nation’s examines numerous other domestic episodes such as placing the American Revolution in the context of the European wars of the time to an international perspective on progressive reform following the 1890s. Bender carefully notes that the destruction of the nation state is not the point, but rather a more nuanced and accurate understanding of America’s own history and that of its place in the world.

== II. Culture, Space, and Economics ==

The threads of modernism and postmodernism in Western historical thought remain. If Modernism struggles with concepts of time, then Postmodernism’s great dilemma involves space. As noted above, several cultural theorists, anthropologists, historians, and others continue to carry forth similar temporal and spatial struggles. Abstract ideas such as time and space serve as crucial characters in Stephen Kern’s intellectual history The Culture of Time and Space 1880-1918. The collapse of space, the imposition of time, the destruction of form, and the rapidly increasing importance of the present due to technological advance drove intellectual thought, art, literature and even war in the first decades of the long twentieth century. Kern’s work argues that essential human understandings regarding time, space, direction, and form were radically transformed by technological innovations such as the telegraph, telephone, railroad, automobile and cinema which undermined traditional hierarchies throughout society. Beginning with time, Kern outlines how the implementation of Standard Time set off a countercurrent that rejected a single monolithic time for the idea of “private time” which was fluid, multiple, and constantly in flux. The concept of ‘simultaneity” emerged among artists and others suggesting that the present was not “a sequence of single local events … [but] a simultaneity of multiple distant events.” Simultaneity depended on “private time” which emphasized the present, reorienting humanity’s relation to the past and future. Ideas of the past and future remained similar to those of earlier eras but the past took on increased importance regarding the present and what came after. Stream of consciousness writing represented the importance of the present such that a single moment in thought, as evidenced by Joyce’s work, might traverse numerous periods and spaces, making individual’s private time transhistorical and potentially transnational.

Though new constructions of time suggesting pluralities and the importance of reference reverberated, the alteration of humanity’s spatiality mattered equally if not more. In terms of transportation, railroads, airplanes, cars and bicycles collapsed physical space, reorienting nations’ ideas of themselves and others. Simultaneously, the telephone, telegraph, and cinema made information nearly instantaneous, surprising, and broad. Additionally, these innovations collapsed spaces more abstractly such as with the cinematic technique of the close up which engaged the audience more directly creating shared intimacy between actor and audience and between audience members. In the world of art, the “affirmation of positive negative space” struck down artistic traditions and hierarchies just as the cinema brought numerous classes in public space together. As with time, concepts such as the plurality of space, “affirmation of negative space”, perspectivism, and the restructuring of forms undermined traditional hierarchies paralleling the collapse of aristocracies and the rise of the bourgeoisie. Kerns’ observations support those of many of the aforementioned writers. The mulitiplicity of spaces, their collapse, and the proliferation of numerous times, parallel similar arguments brought forth by Lipsitz and Appadurai. Had Kern tackled his subject differently from a wider temporal perspective, one might also add Hobsbawm since the work of many modernist writers, poets, and painters reinforced the narrow identities of nation states through their own works (such as the emphasis on ‘folk’) most notably Ezra Pound and William Butler Yeats. Of course, Kern’s emphasis on technology suggests a techonological determinism driving The Culture of Time and Space that might obscure other forces at work. Moreover, Kern’s work focuses exclusively on Western Europe and to a lesser extent the United States ignoring the work of intellectuals in the world’s colonial states. Ironically, at the time, many European artists looked to Africa and Asia for inspiration.

Modernism’s struggles to account for space and time reshaped ideas about each. The adoption of modernism by Western governments and societies along with the canonization of its various cultural products (paintings, literature, architecture) created dominant discourse which others pushed back against. Though not as monolithic as perceived , new writers, artists, and theorists resisted Modernism’s pervasive influence through a new aesthetic referred to as Postmodernism. However, as anthropologist David Harvey argues, though meant to create new oppositions and spaces for marginalized peoples, a project not unlike that of current transnationalists, post-modernity reveals a problematic construct that though gives voice to otherness, that simultaneously ghettoizes them in an “opaque otherness”. Written in 1989, Harvey’s The Condition of Postmodernity maps the cultural changes that have unfolded from Modernism to Postmodernism. Along the way numerous shifts within modernism itself helped to construct the Postmodern turn in society and academia that so dominated the 1970s and 80s. Postmodernists debated how to regard space while modernists continued to apply to it a larger social purpose. For Postmodernity, space remained independent, autonomous, and shaped by aesthetics. Postmodernism refused to strike “authoritative” or “immutable standards of aesthetic judgment” rather judgments now hinged on how “spectactular” the aesthetics proved to be.

The debate over Postmodernism does not rise and fall with David Harvey. Rather his work followed the publication of Frederick Jameson’s Postmodernity or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism five years earlier. The dialogue between the two illustrates many of the tensions within Postmodernism along with its apparent failures. Both writers viewed postmodernism as aesthetically obsessed but devoid of content. Additionally, both point to modernism’s dilemma with time arguing that Postmodernism’s fetish dealt with space. One of Postmodernism’s great weaknesses, most visible in its architecture, is its historicism or the random cannibalizing of all past styles. Postmodernisms evoke a past simulacra (his and Harvey’s word not mine) which provide a duplicate of the past or a duplicate interpretation of the past which is then reproduced ad nasuem until it becomes our idea of the past and can be mistaken for the very past it represents. Even worse as Harvey argues, the use of simulacra works to erase any trace of labor or social relations from its production but post modernists fail to acknowledge this since many “disengage” urban spaces from their dependence on function. Unlike Modernism, the use of simulacra and Postmodernism’s focus on alienations leads to “feelings” or “intensities” within its works but they remain impersonal. Some of this relates to commodities and cultural production. The machinery of capitalism for Jameson has on some level infected Postmodernism which displays an affinity for schlock or kitsch; this fetish for the mass produced, turns away from the cultural pretensions of high modernism. Harvey’s criticisms of the Postmodernism attempt to find spaces for the marginalized, bear some relation to Jameson’s who notes similar processes. According to Jameson, Postmodernism’s spatialization textualizes all in its path from bodies to the state to consumption itself. While Postmodernism creates space for marginalized groups it remains “’merely’ a cultural dominant as it coexists with other resistant and heterogenous forces which it has a vocation to subdue and incorporate.”

Both Jameson and Harvey’s critiques of Postmodernism emanate from its relation to capitalism. The commodification of cultural products, their fragmentation, and the shift from place to space, holds dire consequences for working class communities. Regarding the Postmodern crisis over space, Jameson has much to say. Place has been lost. According to Jameson, the average person can no longer map their own place in the multinational, decentralized, urban metropolis. Postmodernism locates humanity in a sort of hyperspace where “place in the U.S. no longer exists or it exists at much feebler levels.” Space itself is not the culprit but capitalism and other global systems, “The problem is still one of representation, and also of representability: we know that we are caught within these more complex global networks, because we palpably suffer the prolongations of corporate space everywhere in our daily lives. Yet we have no way of thinking about them, of modeling them, however abstractly, in our mind.” Similarly, Harvey views the same developments warily. For Harvey the reorganization of global economics privileged “powers of greater coordination”, leading to greater use of finance capital which resulted in a devaluation of commodities and a fall in standard of living. Ironically, the decline in the importance of borders has increased the value of space, “shifts in tempo or in spatial ordering redistribute social power by changing the conditions of monetary gains”. This shift from place to space, undermines working class attempts to accumulate social and political power. Jameson’s work supports this argument suggesting that Postmodernity contributed to the rise of political groups rather than a class politics. Such memberships prove smaller, easier to organize, more homogenous, and are imbued with a psychic connection lacking in class which acts as a sprawling heterogenous category that Jameson astutely notes must be convinced first that it even exists. This also reflects late capitalism in its dispersement and atomization which then requires the local concerns of groups need to be expanded and broadcast such that they may incorporate other groups

Jameson and Harvey serve as seminal texts on Postmodernity. However, though each provides sophisticated economic observations, their analysis rests on a Marxist cultural approach. Immanuel Wallerstein’s 2003 work, The Decline of American Power: The US in a Chaotic World builds on several points proposed by both Jameson and Harvey but also provides points of divergence. Wallerstein views the current global economic system as in flux. If Harvey and Jameson point to 1973 as the pivotal year for American Capitalism , Wallerstein locates this critical juncture in 1968. In this moment collapsed a popular faith in centrist liberalism as many 1968 protesters rejected U.S. hegemony, the U.S.S.R’s complicity in this dominance, and the failure of previous radicals or old left to consolidate their acquisition of state power into the expected or promised reforms. Additionally Wallerstein notes, repeatedly, “The collapse of communism in effect signified the collapse of liberalism by removing the only ideological justification behind U.S. hegemony.”

At times, The Decline of American Power treads into debates about simultaneity, spatial orderings, and the fluid nature of time. In these examples, Wallerstein echoes Modernist concerns about time that other writers such as David Harvey and Frederick Jameson discuss in their respective scholarship though his dips into more existential terrority reminiscent of Arjun Appardurai minus the emphasis on technology . For example, when Wallerstein notes that “we live in many of these social temporalities, simultaneously,” then follows that no unique universalisms exist but “also that science is the search for multiples universalisms can be navigated in a universe that is intrinsically uncertain and therefore hopefully creative,” he seems to point to the fractured overlapping nature of existence that Modernity at Large, Postmodernity, and The Condition of Postmodernity address. Moreover, Wallerstein’s work echoes the efforts of postmodernists to ascribe marginalized groups a seat at the cultural table when universalisms impose themselves broadly, “people take refuge in particularisms,” but that minorities only follow such routes when attempts at citizenship (meaning equal citizenship) have been denied or held back by illegitimate force. Certainly, Wallerstein agrees with Harvey and Jamison in their assertions that the Postmodern order remains linked to capitalism such that the tensions between temporalities, particularisms and universalisms, create a “central locus of political struggle” in which the culture of protest has been commodified. Yet, unlike, Jameson and Harvey however, Wallerstein sees hope in these new political memberships, “In the drama and struggle of recent decades new social movements based on new memberships have emerged such as the Greens, environmentalists, feminists, ethnic/racial minorities, human rights groups and anti-globalization protesters. They must debate their goals and the current transition while not neglecting short term gains as well including electoral politics.” Clearly, Wallerstein views the current condition of humanity with greater optimism taking solace in what he believes is an economic system in transition, one where new solidarities, politics, and opportunities may emerge.

Wallerstein’s optimistic proclamations found both support and criticism from numerous corners but especially from Richard Kilminster. According to Kliminster, the political influence of the nation state and the position that many social scientists take in relation to its dominance have distorted their arguments. Wallerstein serves as Kilminister primary contemporary foil. While accusing Wallerstien of ignoring cultural influences and resorting to a teleological viewpoint (which to be fair he also ascribes to Marx), he also credits Wallerstein with suggesting that scholars consider the creation of “social reciprocities and interdependencies integrated at a level above that of the nation state.” For Kilminster, the political trap that many social scientists fall into lay in their no doubt principled opposition to the dominance of Western nation states. However, he cautions that such polemical tropes lead to the establishment of arguments that can be neither proven nor disproven. Moreover, Kilminister acknowledges that peoples have traditions that predate Marxism and the like that are not simply constructed social manifestations. Still, like Wallerstein, Kilminster adopts a more positive perspective. For example, though he agrees nations remain unequal economically, rich nations are less likely to resort to violent coercion at least in comparison to colonialism. However, this viewpoint carries with it the caveat that nations remain more willing to resort to violence then most citizens. The power of poorer nations can only be grasped when one “considers the relations between interdependent peoples in the round, and not only economically.” Here once again, the influence of Said emerges as Kilminster carries forth Said’s argument to the contemporary era that western power depends heavily on parts of the world once considered peripheral.

== III. Conclusion ==

The question remains, if the naturalization of both the nation-state and free markets prove illusionary, how should historians and other scholars imagine new memberships and solidarities. Perhaps a brief exploration of Jacqure Derrida may prove useful. Several authors from Bender to Kilminster suggest that academics need to embrace a sort of “cosmopolitanism”. How should one interpret this? Kilminster argues that “Globlization fosters forms of cosmopolitan consciousness and stimulates feelings and expressions of ethnicity.” Thus, it seems to both encourage inclusiveness while simultaneously building ethnic/racial solidarities. In his 2001 On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, Derrida retreats from the nation state emphasizing the locality that other writers such as Appadurai, Wallerstein, and Lipsitz emphasize as increasingly important. The city becomes the locus of salvation. Basing his argument on Europe’s “history of hospitality” , Derrida suggests that cities must embrace this moment, balancing the needs of law, traditions of hospitality, and cosmopolitanism, “how to transform and improve the law, and of knowing if this improvement is possible within an historical space which takes place between the Law of an unconditional hospitality, offered a priori to every other, to all newcomers, whoever they may be, and the conditional laws of a right to hospitality, without which The unconditional Law of hospitality would be in danger of remaining a pious and irresponsible desire, without form and without potency, and of even being perverted at any moment.” Thus, Derrida seems to be acknowledging the importance of the very localities that Appadurai argues have grown in importance while maneuvering these localities away from nation-state conceptions. Simultaneously, Derrida encourages transnationalists like Siegel to push away borders into equating this new “cosmopolitanism” with a transnational or translocal existence.

Historians must both theorize for the future while reflecting on the past. The changes of modernity impact the view of what’s come before as the historical profession utilizes new sensibilities to locate formulations and alliances that had always been present but not always visibly. The collapse of borders, the increasing importance of space over place, the reinforcement of new solidarities apart from the nation-state and dissemination of simultaneously unifying and fracturing technologies cast light onto past historical conditions and actors that provide both continuity and discontinuity to our modern grasp of society. It remains incumbent upon historians to highlight these developments in the past, present, and future.

'''Ryan Reft'''

[[Category: Immanuel Wallerstein]]

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-28T21:50:38Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series = a John Hope Franklin Center Book
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague. Wallerstein argues that the capitalist modern world system originated around 1650, and that the system is reaching limits which will bring about a crisis which will resolve in the creation of a new world-system.
==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

==The Modern World-System==

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view world-systems are defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized <abbr title="Its all about the Benjamins">"endless accumulation of capital,"</abbr> and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally, one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==The Path Forward==
The final chapter of the book, or the first depending upon what order the reader selects, looks critically at the modern world-system. Wallerstein sees the current system reaching asymptotic limits which include urbanization, resource consumption, and waste generation. He predicts a transition period marked by instability and increased violence as people continue to seek to benefit from the extant system while simultaneously pushing it inexorably towards its limits.
==Sources Cited==


[[Category:Theory]]

[[Category: World History]]

[[Category:Immanuel Wallerstein]]

[[Category:Book Summaries]]

User:JennyArora

2017-02-27T23:37:04Z

Emeehan: Blanked the page

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-19T23:44:34Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series = a John Hope Franklin Center Book
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague. Wallerstein argues that the capitalist modern world system originated around 1650, and that the system is reaching limits which will bring about a crisis which will resolve in the creation of a new world-system.
==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

==The Modern World-System==

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view world-systems are defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized <abbr title="Its all about the Benjamins">"endless accumulation of capital,"</abbr> and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally, one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==The Path Forward==
The final chapter of the book, or the first depending upon what order the reader selects, looks critically at the modern world-system. Wallerstein sees the current system reaching asymptotic limits which include urbanization, resource consumption, and waste generation. He predicts a transition period marked by instability and increased violence as people continue to seek to benefit from the extant system while simultaneously pushing it inexorably towards its limits.
==Sources Cited==

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-19T23:31:33Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series = a John Hope Franklin Center Book
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague. Wallerstein argues that the capitalist modern world system originated around 1650, and that the system is reaching limits which will bring about a crisis which will resolve in the creation of a new world-system.
==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

==The Modern World-System==

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view world-systems are defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized <abbr title="Its all about the Benjamins">"endless accumulation of capital,"</abbr> and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally, one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==Sources Cited==

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-19T23:25:08Z

Emeehan: /* The Modern World System */

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series =
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague. Wallerstein argues that the <abbr title="Its all about the Benjamins”>capitalist</abbr> modern world system originated around 1650, and that the system is reaching limits which will bring about a crisis which will resolve in the creation of a new world-system.
==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

==The Modern World-System==

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view world-systems are defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized "endless accumulation of capital," and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally, one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==Sources Cited==

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-19T22:51:57Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series =
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague. Wallerstein argues that the <abbr title="Its all about the Benjamins”>capitalist</abbr> modern world system originated around 1650, and that the system is reaching limits which will bring about a crisis which will resolve in the creation of a new world-system.
==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

==The Modern World System==

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view world-systems are defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized "endless accumulation of capital," and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally, one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==Sources Cited==

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-19T22:47:43Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series =
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague.

==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

==The Modern World System==

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view world-systems are defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized <abbr title="Its all about the Benjamins”>“endless accumulation of capital,”</abbr> and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally, one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==Sources Cited==

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-19T22:46:37Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series =
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague.

==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

<abbr title="Its All About the Benjamins”>==The Modern World System==<abbr>

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view world-systems are defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized “endless accumulation of capital,” and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally, one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==Sources Cited==

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-19T22:45:41Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series =
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague.

==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

== <abbr title="Its All About the Benjamins”>The Modern World System</abbr>==

Wallerstein relies heavily upon the foundation laid by Karl Marx and in his view world-systems are defined best by the “division of labor which is constituted within it.”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23</ref> Specifically Wallerstein sees the modern world-system as being defined by its capitalist nature. He argues that while wage labor and other components of capitalism existed far earlier than his proposed start date of the modern system, the modern system is the first which prioritized “endless accumulation of capital,” and it is this feature which he identifies as existing uniquely after 1650.

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally, one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==Sources Cited==

World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-19T22:35:12Z

Emeehan:

{{Infobox book
| name = World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
| image = [[File:World-Systems_Analysis An Introduction.png|200px|alt=Cover]]
| image_caption =
| author = Immanuel Wallerstein
| translator =
| country = USA
| language = English
| series =
| publisher = Duke University Press
| pub_date = 2004
| pages = 128
| isbn = 978-0822334422
| oclc =
| congress =
}}

Immanuel Wallerstein’s association with world-systems theory dates back to his multi-volume ‘’The aModern World System,’’ which was first published in 1974. ‘’World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction’’ sums up the theoretical underpinnings of other works in 90 short pages. Part of what enabled Wallerstein to write such a succinct version of his world-system theory is that he nearly entirely omits examples of the phenomena that he refers to; instead, this work is highly abstracted and if regarded in isolation could be regarded as vague.

==Structure==

The book is divided into 5 chapters, and concludes with a glossary of terms. The first chapter examines the historiography of the theory of world-systems analysis. The next three chapters examine the formation and the workings of the extant world-system. In the last chapter Wallerstein looks to the future and hypothesizes about how our understanding of world-systems can provide a clue towards how events will unfold going forward. Wallerstein notes that for some readers the last chapter may be appropriate to read first – but he does not specify which type of reader this would be, or which chapters should be read next.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Kindle Location 160. “Some readers will prefer to jump to chapter 5 immediately, to make chapter 5 into chapter 1.”</ref> However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that those more interested in his theory, or those seeking a more casual read should approach the book beginning with chapter 5. From there the logical procession would be 2,3,4, and 1 would be optional. Chapter 1 primarily serves to acknowledge that Wallerstein’s ideas did not form in a vacuum, but instead built upon a pre-existing world-historical tradition – but does not greatly contribute to the readers understanding of world-systems as Wallerstein formulates it.

==World-Systems: Mind the Hyphen==

Wallerstein makes much of the hyphenation of world-system, a practice that some authors like Janet Abu-Lughod eschew.<ref> Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).</ref> To Wallerstein “putting in the hyphen was intended to underline that we are talking not about systems, economies, empires of the (whole) world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world (but quite possibly, and indeed usually, not encompassing the entire globe).”<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 16.</ref>

==Core/Periphery Relations==

Underpinning the modern world-system is the concept of core and peripheral productive processes. These terms are defined relationally, one cannot refer to a world-system consisting solely of core or peripheral processes. According to Wallerstein, core processes are those that are more heavily monopolized and therefore are more profitable than peripheral processes.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 17</ref> While core and periphery are often used as shorthand for core process and peripheral process, the terms are ‘’not’’ inherently geographical – it just so happens that core processes tend to centralize into ‘core areas.’ Similarly, core regions and peripheral regions need not be homogenous and in practice rarely are. Core regions such as industrialized nations have their own peripheries within them, and peripheral states have core regions such as urban centers. What is most important is that relation favors the concentration of capital within core areas, and thus ‘underdevelopment’ of peripheral areas is an expected consequence of this redistributive mechanism.

==Asymptotic Limits of World-Systems==

Despite choosing 1650 as a start date for the modern world-system, Wallerstein is not asserting that the current world-system is the first world-system, or the only world-system possible. In fact he argues that world-systems have limits which he describes as asymptotic. The modern world-system involves the increasing urbanization of land and the centralization of populations in urban centers. While this process can continue for a long time, it is inherently finite: once all of the land is urbanized or all of the population lives in urban centers no more urbanization can take place.<ref> Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Theory: An Introduction, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 80-81.</ref> This serves as a limit to our capitalist world-system because as land becomes increasingly urbanized companies lose the ability to achieve the low production costs necessary to keep profits high. If profitability declines to zero, or near zero, businesses will have no incentive to continue functioning as they do – resulting in an abrupt cessation of capitalism world-system.
==Sources Cited==

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World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-17T16:18:32Z

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World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

2017-02-17T16:09:14Z

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World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

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