In this book, the author focuses on the two central conflicts of capitalism, bourgeois versus proletarian and core versus periphery, in an attempt to describe both the cyclical rhythms and the secular transformations of capitalism, conceived as a singular world-system.

Some reflections on history, the social sciences, and politics; Acknowledgments; Part I. The Inequalities of Core and Periphery: 1. The rise and future demise of the world capitalist system: concepts for comparative analysis; 2. Three paths of national development in sixteenth-century Europe; 3. The present state of the debate on world inequality; 4. Dependence in an interdependent world: the limited possibilities of transformation within the capitalist world-economy; 5. Semiperipheral countries and the contemporary world crisis; 6. The rural economy in modern world society; 7. Modernization: requiescat in pace; 8. From feudalism to capitalism: transition or transitions?; 9. A world-system perspective on the social sciences; Part II. The Inequalities of Class, Race and Ethnicity: 10. Social conflict in post-independence Black Africa: the concepts of race and status group reconsidered; 11. The two modes of ethnic consciousness: Soviet Central Asia in transition; 12. Class and class conflict in contemporary Africa; 13. American slavery and the capitalist world-economy; 14. Class formation in the capitalist world-economy; Part III. Political Strategies: 15. Old problems and new syntheses: the relation of revolutionary ideas and practices; 16. Fanon and the revolutionary class; 17. An historical perspective on the emergence of the new international order: economic, political, cultural aspects; Concluding essay; 18. Class conflict in the capitalist world-economy; Index.