Book Cover -- Title -- Contents -- List of figures -- List of tables -- List of contributors -- An introduction to world system history: toward a social science of long-term change -- General perspectives on world system history -- The five thousand year world system in theory and praxis -- World system evolution -- Civilizations, world systems and hegemonies -- Comparing world-systems to explain social evolution -- From regional and sectoral to a global perspective -- Envisioning global change: a long-term perspective -- Concretizing the continuity argument in global systems analysis -- On the evolution of global systems, part I: the Mesopotamian heartland -- State and economy in ancient Egypt -- World systems and social change in agrarian societies, 3000 BC to AD 1500 -- Global macro-historical processes -- Information and transportation nets in world history -- Neglecting Nature: world accumulation and coreperiphery relations, 2500 BC to AD 1990 -- Accumulation based on symbolic versus intrinsic 'productivity': conceptualizing unequal exchange from Spondylus shells to fossil fuels -- War and warfare: scales of conflict in long-range analysis -- The evolution of the world-city system, 3000 BCE to AD 2000 -- Comparison, cumulation, cooperation -- Comparing approaches to the social science history of the world system -- Cumulation and direction in world system history -- Bibliography -- Name index -- Subject index.