Immanuel Wallerstein"s World-System theory made a big impact on International Political Economy when it was first formulated in the early 1980s. Although subsequently criticised, the recent demise of the Soviet system"s historic attempt to delink from global capitalism has provided a perhaps unanticipated confirmation of the profundity of its insights. Now with this new book, Wallerstein and a team of colleagues from the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations take world-system theory a major step forward.