Abstract

The book continues Immanuel Wallerstein’s historical narrative of the modern world-system. It focuses primarily on the social and political developments in the European core during the nineteenth century, tracing the rise of liberal hegemony, the growth of the administrative state, and the emergence of modern social science. It also examines the rise of anti-systemic socialist, feminist, and nationalist movements that challenged the liberal project. The book successfully illustrates how the world-systems framework can be used to analyse the intersection between the national and the international spheres. Through its historical critique of the human sciences, it also makes an effective case for the viability of world-systems analysis as an alternative mode of critical social-scientific inquiry.