ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines a recent attempt in sociology to make sense of the social, economic, and political history of the modern societies - world-system theory. World-system theory is also part of a general theoretical development in sociology that began in the 1970s. During the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, structural-functionalism was the dominant approach in US sociology. World-system theorists reject the structural-functionalist theory of modernization, which considered societies relatively stable systems of interrelated parts. Modernization theorists interpreted the problems and events in Third World countries in light of the presumed universality. By the late 1960s, both the general model of structural-functionalism and the specific claims of modernization theory were encountering a number of criticisms in US sociology. Marx's basic model of society emphasized the role of power in social relationships and the constant conflict generated by that exploitation.
