Histories of the Present: Giovanni Arrighi & the Long Duree of Geohistorical Capitalism

Authors

  • Thomas E. Reifer University of San Diego

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2009.324

Abstract

One of the more telling features of the present conjuncture is the scarcity of analysis able to squarely place today?s global turbulence and the current crises in geohistorical perspective. In terms of the longue duree of capitalism since its late medieval and early modern origins right up to the present, arguably no intellectual has developed a more formidable analysis of the present crisis than Giovanni Arrighi. Arrighi of course, along with Immanuel Wallerstein (1974, 1980, 1989) and the late Terence Hopkins, was one of the originators and foremost proponents of the world-systems perspective on European domination, global capitalism, global income inequalities and ?development? (see Arrighi, Hopkins & Wallerstein, 1989). The world-systems perspective itself ? challenging as it did the dominance of post-World War II modernization theory - came out the movements of the 1960s and brought together fruitful synthesis of Marxism, Third World radicalism, and critical currents in social science, from the work of the French Annales school to that of the German historical school (see Goldfrank 2000).

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Published

2009-08-26

How to Cite

Reifer, T. E. (2009). Histories of the Present: Giovanni Arrighi & the Long Duree of Geohistorical Capitalism. Journal of World-Systems Research, 15(2), 249–256. https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2009.324

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Section

Book Review Symposium: Giovanni Arrighi's Adam Smith In Beijing