ABSTRACT
Six hundred years ago the world was divided into a series of different regions. Europe, the Arab world, China, Japan, the civilisations of the Indus, the Mayas and the Incas, various sub-Saharan civilisations; these and others existed apart from one another. Yes, there were some contacts. Arabs and Christians were engaged in a sustained trial of strength around the Mediterranean. The Chinese made periodic forays far from home. And there was a trade in luxuries between Europe and Asia. But there was no ‘world-system’. 1 Economic, social and cultural life subsisted almost independently in the separate regions of the world. Indeed, one might say that those different regions existed in different worlds.
