The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century, Academic Press; (August 1997).

Editorial Reviews:
"...one of the important books of the year....all are sure to agree that Wallerstein has written a most impressive book." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"This is an exciting and highly intelligent book...Wallerstein has produced a splendid stimulant to our historical imagination, and deserves a wide readership." HISTORY
"[This] is a visionary work…this may be one of the most important theoretical statements about development since the time of Max Weber." 
CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY
"...Wallerstein has provided what can only be called a major work of analytical and synthetic sociological history...Wallerstein's work is indispensable to those who wish to understand the background from which the contemporary world has emerged."
POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY 

Book Description:
This book was written during a year's stay at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Countless authors have sung its praises. Aside from splendid surroundings, unlimited library and secretarial assistance, and a ready supply of varied scholars to consult at a moment's notice, what the center offers is to leave the scholar to his own devices, for good or ill. Would that all men had such wisdom. The final version was consummated with the aid of a grant from the Social Sciences... read more 

Reviews:
"An indispensable acquisition for academic libraries, upper-division and above, mainly because of the ongoing discussion that was initiated with the publication of Volume I."
--CHOICE
"[Wallerstein's] greatest strength in this enterprise is his prodigious knowledge of the literature. The bibliography at the end of the books is not only impressive and useful but is also reflected in the footnoting of each passage... [this work] commands respect and justifies interest in the volumes to follow."
--SOCIETY
"In our age of high specialization, Wallerstein's ambitious yet judicious synthesis will command the respect of any scholar who has tried to grapple with the peculiarly intractable problems of the period."
--JOURNAL OF MODERN HISTORY 

Reviews:
"...one of the important books of the year....all are sure to agree that Wallerstein has written a most impressive book."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

"This is an exciting and highly intelligent book... Wallerstein has produced a splendid stimulant to our historical imagingation, and deserves a wide readership."
HISTORY 

From the Publisher:
In The Capitalist World-Economy Immanuel Wallerstein focuses on the two central conflicts of capitalism, bourgeois versus proletarian and core versus periphery, in an attempt to describe both the cyclical rhythms and the secular transformations of capitalism, conceived as a singular world-system. The essays include discussions of the relationship of class and ethnonational consciousness, clarification of the meaning of transition from feudalism to capitalism, the utility of the concept of the semi peripheral state, and the relationship of socialist states to the capitalist world-economy. This book is the first in a three volume collection of Wallerstein's essays. The Politics of World-Economy (1984) elaborates on the role of states, the antisystemic movements and the civilizational project. Geopolitics and Geoculture (1991) analyses both the events leading up to the collapse of the Iron Curtain, and the subsequent process of perestroika in the light of Wallerstein's own interpretations, and the ways in which the renewed concern with culture is a product of the changing world-system. 

From the Publisher:
This is the third volume of Immanuel Wallerstein's essays to appear in Studies in Modern Capitalism, following the immensely successful collections The Politics of the World Economy and The Capitalist World Economy. Written between 1982 and 1989, the essays in this volume offer Wallerstein's perspective on the events of the period, and the background to his interpretation of the momentous events of 1989. Wallerstein argues that the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the process of perestroika bear out his basic analysis: that the decline of U.S. hegemony in the world-system is the central explanatory variable of change; and that the collapse of the communist empire and the approach of European unity cannot be understood without reference to this decline as a critical stage in the cyclical rhythm of the capitalist world economy. As part of the analysis the book also charts the development of a challenge to the dominant "geoculture": the cultural framework within which the world-system operates. This collection offers the latest ideas of one of the most original and controversial thinkers of recent years, and is bound to stimulate debate among students and scholars across the social sciences. 
 

From the Publisher:
Key essays from the "prolific, provocative, big-picture theorist'" (Booklist) and originator of world-systems analysis. Immanuel Wallerstein is one of the most innovative social scientists of his generation. Past president of the International Sociological Association, he has had a major influence on the development of social thought throughout the world, and his books are translated into every major language. The Essential Wallerstein brings together for the first time the full range of his scholarship. This comprehensive collection of essays offers a unique overview of this seminal thinker's work, showing the development of his thought: from his groundbreaking research on contemporary African politics and social change, to his study of the modern world-system, to his current essays on the new structures of knowledge emerging from the crisis of the capitalist world-economy. His singular focus on the way in which change in one part of the globe affects the whole is all the more relevant as the world grows increasingly interdependent. The Essential Wallersteinis an ideal introduction to the extensive body of work from a thinker who helped introduce globally sensitive thinking to the field of social science.This is the first in a series of Readers bringing together the key works of major figures in the social sciences. 

The End of the World as We Know It: Social Science for the Twenty-First Century, Univ of Minnesota Pr (Txt); 1st edition (July 28, 1999).

From the Publisher:
A respected thinker points the way ahead. 
This book is nothing short of a state-of-the-world address, delivered by a scholar uniquely suited to the task. Immanuel Wallerstein, one of the most prominent social scientists of our time, documents the profound transformations our world is undergoing. With these transformations, he argues, come equally profound changes in how we understand the world. 

Wallerstein divides his work between an appraisal of significant recent events and a study of the shifts in thought influenced by those events. The book's first half reviews the major happenings of recent decades-the collapse of the Leninist states, the exhaustion of national liberation movements, the rise of East Asia, the challenges to national sovereignty, the dangers to the environment, the debates about national identity, and the marginalization of migrant populations. Wallerstein places these events and trends in the context of the changing modern world-system as a whole and identifies the historical choices they put before us. 

The second half of the book takes up current issues in the world of knowledge-the vanishing faith in rationality, the scattering of knowledge activities, the denunciation of Eurocentrism, the questioning of the division of knowledge into science and humanities, and the relation of the search for the true and the search for the good. Wallerstein explores how these questions have arisen from larger social transformations, and why the traditional ways of framing such debates have become obstacles to resolving them. The End of the World As We Know It concludes with a crucial analysis of the momentous intellectual challenges to social science as we know it and suggests possible responses to them. 

The Decline of American Power, New Press; (July 2003) 

From the Publisher:
The internationally renowned theorist contends that the sun is setting on the American Empire. 

The United States in decline? Its admirers and detractors alike claim the opposite: that America is now in a position of unprecedented global supremacy. But in fact, Immanuel Wallerstein argues, a more nuanced evaluation of recent history reveals that America has been fading as a global power since the end of the Vietnam War, and, in the long term, its response to the terrorist attacks of September 11 may well hasten that decline. 

In this provocative volume Wallerstein—the "visionary" (Diplomatic History) originator of world-systems analysis and the most innovative social scientist of his generation—turns his practiced analytical eye to the turbulent beginnings of the 21st century. Wallerstein upends conventional wisdom to produce a clear-eyed—and troubling—assessment of the crumbling international order and America's precarious footing at its pinnacle. 

About the Author
Immanuel Wallerstein directs the Fernand Braudel Center at Binghamton University and teaches at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales in Paris. His many books include After Liberalism; Utopistics; The Modern World-System; and Historical Capitalism.