Cover Image of ISBN 9780195067743

Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350 (Paperback)

Professor of Sociology and Historical Studies Janet L Abu-Lughod
9780195067743
0-19-506774-6

In this important study, Abu-Lughod presents a groundbreaking reinterpretation of global economic evolution, arguing that the modern world economy had its roots not in the sixteenth century, as is widely.

supposed, but in the thirteenth century economy--a system far different from the European world system which emerged from it. Using the city as the working unit of analysis, Before European Hegemony provides a new paradigm for understanding the evolution of world systems by tracing the rise of a system that, at its peak in the opening decades of the 14th century, involved a vast region stretching between northwest Europe and China. Writing in a clear and lively style, Abu-Lughod explores the reasons for the eventual decay of this system and the rise of European hegemony.