Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the expansion of "Central Civilization" and its incorporation by force of twelve formerly autonomous regional systems. It provides definitions of core, periphery and semiperiphery and describes the shifting boundaries of these zones for the fourteen civilizations/world systems produced by the author’s approach. The book summarizes the intellectual history of evolutionary theory and places world-system theory and its extension to precapitalist systems in the context of debates about social evolution. It explores the Cahokia-centered world-system located in the North American mid-continent around A.D. 900. The book argues that a regionally stratified intersocietal system is built on the monopolization and distribution of sumptuary goods. It also examines the variable roles of nomads in nomad-sedentary relations, and especially their peculiar role in core/periphery hierarchies.