ABSTRACT
Civilizations are world systems. (Non-urban world systems, as studied by Chase-Dunn, do exist; but I shall not discuss them further in this expository
context.) What then are civilizations? Civilizations are societies with cities (settlements of or above the order of 104=10,000). Their spatial limits are located by the limits of regular transactional interaction, especially politico-militarydiplomatic interaction. Contrary to the common (‘Parsonian’?) assumptions that a society has a polity, an economy, and a culture, civilizations are social systems with a coextensive polity (usually a system of territorial states). But they usually nest within the more spatially extensive penumbra of an oikumene (world economy) which links them economically to other civilizations and to non-civilized (i.e. non-urban) but populated space. And they exist without coherent cultures or cultural systems; instead they usually, probably always, are polycultures.
