ABSTRACT
Centralized state apparatuses, with bureaucratic systems of administration and large standing armies, provided the organizational basis for extensive empires. Within the boundaries of these empires, there was a significant degree of geographically based economic specialization and internal trade. Northern Africa was dotted with trading cities separated by vast areas populated by nomadic herders. Abu-Lughod argues that the precursor to the modern world-system reached its zenith of prosperity and economic integration in the thirteenth century. After that, it went through a period of disorganization and decline. Trade routes were cut by war and political disorder. By the middle of the sixteenth century the crude outlines of the modern world-system had emerged. Although the struggle for advantage by the various groups and states in the system was by no means resolved, one can speak of the existence of a world-system of capitalism during this period.
