Reflections on an Intellectual Adventure

Author(s): Immanuel Wallerstein

Source: Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 41, No. 1 (January 2012), pp. 6-9
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23211995
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 © American Sociological Association 2012
DOI: 10.1177/0094306111430786
http://cs.sagepub.com

SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM ON
THE MODERN WORLD-SYSTEM,
VOLS. T-L%
BY IMMAJWEL WAIAERSTEIN

Reflections on an Intellectual Adventure

Immanuel Wallerstein
Yale University
immanuel.wallerstein@yale.edu

When I started out to write The Modern on an equal level with an interest in the pan

World-System (MWS) in 1970,1 had no idea European world. I thought I was going to
that forty-one years later I would be publish emphasize India as a focus of work, but the

ing its fourth volume and asserting that I accidents of activity in youth organizations
needed three more volumes to finish the led me to important contacts with Africa
work. What started out as an attempt to (and indeed particularly French-speaking
write up, in brief compass, what I had been Africa). So I decided to do a doctoral disser
teaching as a course for a few years became tation on an African topic, with the aid of the
a lifetime intellectual adventure. then new Ford Foundation grants for area
To understand this, I have to begin at the studies. Fortunately, once again, the gradu
beginning. I grew up in New York City in ate department of sociology at Columbia
the heyday of Roosevelt's New Deal, the looked upon this interest with a bemused
world struggle against fascism, and the Sec eye. Why not? they seemed to imply. One
ond World War, during which I was just a lit more geographical zone for the Columbia
tle too young to be drafted. As I think about sociology department to conquer.
the things that might explain the paths I later In 1958, I began teaching at Columbia in
took, two things stand out. the college. I had to teach two sections of
The first was that I was voraciously inter a required course in the
college's general
ested in everything, and therefore had a very education program and one other course.
difficult time deciding what might be But what other course? The chair of the col
a career path or even a disciplinary empha lege sociology department was then C.
sis in college. Fortunately, I went to Colum Wright Mills. I asked him what he would
bia for my BA (and later for my MA and suggest. And he, typically, said, why not
PhD). Columbia College was very proud of teach your dissertation? So I invented

anchoring its curriculum in "general educa a course which I called "Changing Institu
tion," and at that time did not even require tions in New Nations." The next year, it
that a student "major" in one discipline. So was made a 400-level course, which meant
I wandered across the disciplines, and only that it was open both for juniors and seniors
decided that I would do graduate studies in the college, and for graduate students.
in sociology in my last semester. I chose soci The second fortuitous event happened in

ology in fact because I saw it as the least the graduate school. Columbia's graduate
restrictive of the disciplines. department had a very eclectic view of
Thesecond particularity, and this goes methodology. It insisted that all graduate
back to my high school days, was an interest students take two semesters of methodology
in the non-Western world, not instead of but courses. But it offered them a choice of six

Contemporary Sociology 41,1

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 Special Symposium 7

one-semester courses, both quantitative and as I went along. What I did, however, in each

qualitative. One of them was called "Com successive session was to combine a histori

parative Sociology" and had been taught cal locus(moving forward from the six

by an assistant professor who was in fact teenth century) with a particular theoretical
an anthropologist by training. His course conundrum. I doubt that the course was
was based on the Human Relations Area very good or very clear. But it too seemed
Files that were then in vogue. attuned to the demands of the times. The
But he left the department after three graduate students were very responsive.
years for a real
anthropology department. I had been invited to be a fellow of the
And the department did not want to lose Center of Advanced Study in the Behavioral
the option. So, one day, Robert Merton, Sciences (CASBS) for 1969-70. But 1968
then the chair, invited Terry Hopkins and broke out at Columbia, and I was involved
me to lunch. Terry and I had joined the full-time with the student strike, thefaculty
department the same year and we were attempt to mediate between the administra

already seen as an intellectual team. Merton tion and the students, and then the attempt

suggested that we jointly take over the to create a

faculty senate at Columbia. I

"Comparative Sociology" methodology was so involved that I forgot to accept the

course. We did, changing it radically, and CASBS invitation in time. Fortunately, Rob
renaming it "The Comparative Study of ert Merton (who was otherwise most
National Societies." unsympathetic to my activities during the
This was the era of John F. Kennedy, and 1968 uprising) was still a key figure in the
the department suddenly had a lot of gradu CASBS, and he arranged that I be invited
ate students who had spent two years in the again for 1970-71.
Peace and were therefore oriented to Because of 1968, I took a time-out from
Corps,
concerns with what was then called the writing about Africa to write about the uni
"Third World." Our new methodology versity for two years or so. But then I went
course was just what they were looking for, to Palo Alto to start my fellowship there in
and it was extremely popular. September, 1970. Palo Alto was still then
instantly
There I was, at Columbia, writing about what Dan Bell famously called "the leisure
Africa and teaching courses about the Third of the theory class." It was an ideal setting
World. I spent a sabbatical year in Africa in for full-time research and
writing. I went

1965-66, doing research for my book on Afri there with the intention of writing up a small
can I divided my time between Accra book based on my course on social change.
unity.
in Ghana (then the fount of strong pan Like the course, it was to combine chronolo
African sentiment) and Dar es Salaam in gy with theory. It soon became clear to me
Tanzania (then the headquarters of the Afri that the chapter on the sixteenth century
can Liberation Committee of the Organiza would have to be a whole book. And by
tion of African Unity). June 1971, I had basically written what
Over that I gave three public talks— would become Volume I of MWS.
year,
the first in Accra, the second in Ibadan I started at that point to teach at McGill.

(Nigeria) which I visited, and the third in When the Christmas break came, I realized
Dar es Salaam. These talks were in fact an that I was rather unhappy with Chapter
evolving set of reflections about post Two of Volume I, so I spent the break rewrit
Africa in the it as well as creating an elaborate index. I
independence world-system. ing
There turned out to be a great deal of interest may also have done the "theoretical reprise"
in this theme. It was about this time that I at that time. Now I had a book. It turned out

discovered Fernand Braudel's books on the it was not at all easy to get it published. This
Mediterranean, and this had a big impact was a massively footnoted book about the

on how I began to think about the topic. sixteenth century. Who might be interested?
When I returned to Columbia, I changed I had signed a contract with a previous pub

my now year-long course on "new nations" lisher. But then the publisher rescinded the
to one I called "Social Moderniza contract, on the grounds that the book was
Change:
tion." This was a terrible title in the light of unsellable. Another publisher refused it on

later views, and the course was invented the grounds that some other book he was
my

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8 Special Symposium

publishing (a book now long forgotten) was We ignored totally the discipline in which
covering the same
ground (it wasn't). invited faculty had received their degrees.
Finally after several other rebuffs, Chuck In the process, we acquired faculty from

Tilly, who was then the series editor of across the disciplines in terms of their train
a new social science series at Academic ing. We established a program of Adjunct
Press, decided to "take a chance" on the Professors (all located outside the United
book. And the imaginative staff editor for States) who came on a recurrent basis for
the series, Stanley Holwitz, made the crucial six weeks each year to give intensive

(if expensive) decision to put the footnotes at courses. And we recruited students from
the bottom of the page rather than as end around the world on the basis of their
notes in the rear. We were launched. work and interests in the kind of work we
The reception was unexpected and were doing, many of whom joined us after
remarkable. I describe it in the Prologue to years in the non-university world. Terry
the new edition of MWS I. Three things res had the habit of telling any graduate student
cued it from what might have been obscuri applicant who had received offers from us

ty. The book in manuscript had been and from some more standard prominent
circulating more than I realized, and it department that, if in the least doubt, they
came to the attention of Gertrud Lenzer, should go to the more standard prominent
who persuaded The New York Times to let department.
her do a first-page review in December of As for the FBC, the key to our operation
1974. In April 1975, Keith Thomas did was the concept of the Research Working
a review for The New York Review of Books Group (RWG). Such groups had one or
that discussed MWS I along with two books more coordinators
plus multiple faculty
by Perry Anderson under the rubric of "jum and graduate students (from any depart
bo history." And at the 1975 meeting of the ment at the university, and sometimes from
American Sociological Association, MWS I other universities). The RWGs were orga
was given the award (then called the Sorokin nized around some very general theme

Award) for distinguished scholarship. (say, households or

antisystemic move
Thestory now shifts to world-systems ments) and spent the first year or so seeking

analysis as a concept and as an intellectual collectively to define a problem and an

movement. My colleague and co-worker, approach to doing research, provided the
Terry Hopkins, had been lured away from research was done over the longue duree
Columbia by the Sociology Department of and was geographically broad.
SUNY-Binghamton. They wanted to start The RWGs typically took 3-10 years to do
a graduate program and asked him to create their work, the membership necessarily
it and run it. After a year or two, they needed evolving somewhat over that time. The
an outside evaluation, and Paul Lazarsfeld work was seen as exploratory and not defin
and I were the team to do it. I was of course itive. The data was of every conceivable vari

very sympathetic to what Terry was estab ety. And the outcome was to be a single
lishing and Lazarsfeld was impressed. It book—not a collection of essays, but an
was then, I think, that he proclaimed that argued collective work. Over thirty years,
Terry and I represented "His Majesty's Loyal a large number of books of this variety
Opposition"—to the Columbia program he were published.
had established with Merton. Funding was of course always an issue.

Terry then devoted his energies to getting The university paid for minimal infrastruc
me to join him at Binghamton. With the aid ture, but not for these research projects. We
of a sympathetic administrator, I was invited of course applied for outside funds to all of
to come in 1976 as chair of the department, the many usual We
grant-giving agencies.
which I remained for four years, and direc found that we often had to work for three
tor of a research institute that was to be cre or four before we had a project that
years
ated, the Fernand Braudel Center (FBC), was "fundable." And we discovered that
which I remained until 2005. when we
applied for funds to such agencies
We established three principles about as the NSF, which had outside reviewers, the
recruitment to the graduate department. reviews came in regularly at two extremes.

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 Special Symposium 9

Half found the projects wonderful and half activities will attest to the fact that we have

thought they were worthless. been able to steer between the shoals.
It was after a few such experiences that we I wrote in 1998 an article entitled "The Rise
realized we had to tackle head-on the issue and Future Demise of World-Systems Analy
of appropriate methodology for research in sis." In it, I argued that the role of challenger
what we were calling historical social sci or gadfly works only for a while. Either the
ence. This led the FBC into a new arena of premises on which we have been operating
work on what we called the structures of become mainstream or not. In either case,

knowledge, which led to other kinds of proj something called world-systems analysis
ects such as Open the Social Sciences, the would probably no longer exist. And the
report of the Gulbenkian Commission. prospects of becoming "mainstream" depend
I will not review here all the critiques of less on the quality or forcefulness of our writ

world-systems analysis. I do this in the ings but on the transformed social context
new Prologue to MWS I. But I wish to within which "mainstreams" are created. I

emphasize one major attempt at steering have long argued that the modern world
between Scylla and Charybdis. In all system is in structural crisis—a crisis whose
the work associated with world-systems outcome is both unpredictable and uncertain.

analysis—the work of the FBC, the annual It is how this crisis is resolved that will deter
meetings of the Political Economy of the mine the mainstreams of the future.

World-System (PEWS) Section of the ASA, Finally, I have insisted, much to the
the international colloquia the FBC co-spon despair of even my friends, that there is no
sored for some twenty years—we tried to such thing as "world-systems theory," only
avoid two things. On the one hand, we a perspective or a mode of analysis. Calling
wanted to be open to a range of approaches it a theory implies a degree of closure, which
to world-historical work, not to become in I for one do not believe is legitimate. We are

any sense a closed sect. But on the other an intellectual movement, whose future I

hand, we wanted to stand for something, have just said is uncertain. But it is one to
not to be diluted in some
amorphous whole, whose premises I am committed. And the
such as "global sociology." It has not been multiple volumes of MWS are the keystone
to do this, but I think that most persons of my own work, which I still regard as an
easy
who have been involved in our multiple intellectual adventure.

The Emergence of Predominant Capitalism: The Long Sixteenth Century

Christopher Chase-Dunn
University of California, Riverside
chriscd@ucd.edu

The new edition of Immanuel Wallerstein's

Volume One of The Modern World-System, The Modern World-System,Vol. I: Capitalist
originally published in 1974, is more beauti Agriculture and the Origins of the European
ful than the original both because of its cov
World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century,
er, and because 37 years of subsequent Immanuel Wallerstein,
by Berkeley,
scholarship and world historical events CA: University of California Press,
have demonstrated the scientific and practi 2011. 442pp. $29.95 paper. ISBN:
cal utility of the theoretical approach devel 9780520267572.
oped in this seminal work. If you care
about human social change you need to
read this book. If you have already read it, focuses on whole interpolity systems rather

you should read it again, as I just have. than single polities. The tendency in socio
The is a strate logical theory has been to think of single
world-systems perspective
gy for explaining institutional change that national societies as whole systems. This

Contemporary Sociology 41,1

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