Spanning ten thousand years of social change, this book examines the ways in which world-systems evolve. A comparative study of stateless societies, state-based regional empires, and the modern global capitalist political economy, it reveals the underlying processes at work in the reproduction and transformation of social, economic, and political structures.Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas Hall show that stateless societies developed in the context of regional intersocietal networks that differed significantly from larger and more hierarchical world-systems. The processes by which chiefdoms...

History Without a Subject presents a broad-ranging discussion of the topic of postmodernity. Beginning with an analysis of how changes in the global economy are affecting the lives of ordinary Americans, this book suggests that the postmodern condition in this country can be likened to the balkanization of culture and society and the Brazilianization of politics and the economy.Arguing that global trends are now more determining than nationally based institutions and organizations, David Ashley traces connections between the postmodern condition and the following developments: the...