The New Hegemon? Contingency and Agency in the Asian Age

Authors

  • Jennifer Bair University of Colorado at Boulder

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2009.321

Abstract

Adam Smith in Beijing is an ambitious sequel to the work that is widely regarded as Giovanni Arrighi?s most important, The Long Twentieth Century. Much like this earlier book, Adam Smith in Beijing is a long, sweeping and provocative exploration of capitalism?s past, present, and future. In The Long Twentieth Century, Arrighi analyzed the 700 year history of the modern world system as a series of cycles of accumulation, each of which occurred under the auspices of a hegemonic power, and each of which included a period of material expansion followed, late in the cycle, by a shift in the locus of capital accumulation to the financial sector. Arrighi?s analysis of four successive regimes?the Genoese, Dutch, British, and U.S.?drew on Braudel?s concept of the ?autumn of a hegemonic system,? which refers to the period of financial expansion marking the maturation of a particular regime of accumulation and its eventual displacement by a new one. This perspective enabled Arrighi to understand the financialization of the world economy, proceeding apace at the time under then-President Clinton, in the context of the longue durée in which one (declining) hegemon?s autumn is another (rising) hegemon?s spring.

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Published

2009-08-26

How to Cite

Bair, J. (2009). The New Hegemon? Contingency and Agency in the Asian Age. Journal of World-Systems Research, 15(2), 220–227. https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2009.321

Issue

Section

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

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