Leading figures in the fields of civilizational studies and sociology and political science join to compare and contrast their assumptions and conclusions about broad-scale social and historical change.

Latent in the current environment of rapid technological advances are breakthroughs waiting to be discovered that will have profound impacts on how organizations will cope with the direction civilization is taking. Information Technology and Societal Development examines in depth the full range of impacts of information technology on civilization and the development of societies. Uniquely broad in the scope of examining the societal implications of informational technology, this groundbreaking reference work makes an essential contribution to research libraries worldwide.

From the Stone Age to the Internet Age, this book tells the story of human sociocultural evolution. It describes the conditions under which hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, agricultural states, and industrial capitalist societies formed, flourished, and declined. Drawing evidence from archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, historical documents, statistics, and survey research, the authors trace the growth of human societies and their complexity, and they probe the conflicts in hierarchies both within and among societies. They also explain the macro-micro links that connect cultural evolution and history with the development of the individual self, thinking processes, and perceptions. Key features of the text Designed for undergraduate and graduate social science classes on social change and globalization topics in sociology, world history, cultural geography, anthropology, and international studies. Describes the evolution of the modern capitalist world-system since the fourteenth century BCE, with coverage of the rise and fall of system leaders: the Dutch in the seventeenth century, the British in the nineteenth century, and the United States in the twentieth century. Provides a framework for analyzing patterns of social change. Includes numerous tables, figures, and illustrations throughout the text. Supplemented by framing part introductions, suggested readings at the end of each chapter, an end of text glossary, and a comprehensive bibliography. Offers a web-based auxiliary chapter on Indigenous North American World-Systems and a companion website with excel data sets and additional web links for students.

Features information about cultural studies, history of ideas and Social Sciences

"The three worlds theory is perhaps still the basis for our dominant assumptions about geopolitical and geocultural order," writes Frederick Buell, "but its hold on our imagination and faith is passing fast. In its place, a startlingly different model—the notion that the world is somehow interconnected into a single system—has emerged, expressing the perception that global relationships constitute not three separate worlds but a single network." In the wake of disillusionment with anticolonial nationalism, and in response to a wide variety of economic, political, demographic, and technological changes, Buell argues, we have come increasingly to view the world as complexly interconnected. In National Culture and the New Global System he considers how the notion of national culture has been conceived—and reconceived—in the postwar period. For much of the period, the "three world" theory provided economic, political, and cultural models for mapping a world of nation-states. More recently, new notions of interconnectedness have been developed, ones that have had profound—and sometimes startling—effects on cultural production and theory. Surveying recent cultural history and theory, Buell shows how our understanding of cultural production relates closely to transformations in models of the world order.

What is civilization, and is it a good thing? It’s a name for the most glorious of humanity’s monuments and cultural achievements; yet it also speaks of the conquests, oppressions, and empires which make their glory possible. This book explains the essence of civilization, then asks what’s wrong with it, and considers what can be done about it.

Identity and Freedom provides a discursive map of Lithuanian liberal nationalism by focusing on the work of three eminent Lithuanian émigré scholars - Vytautas Kavolis, Aleksandras Shtromas and Tomas Venclova. Presenting these critics of society - and also analysing the significant impact of such writers as George Orwell and Czeslaw Milosz on Lithuanian political and cultural dissent - the book elaborates their three models of liberal nationalism as social criticism. Incorporating material which has so far only been available in Lithuanian, Polish and Russian sources, this book will be invaluable for anyone interested in Central and East European politics, culture and society.

"The authors combine an excellent state-of-the-art review of the literature in world-systems analysis with a vigorous presentation of their own quite coherent views. This book is a major contribution to our collective dialogue on the past and the future." —Immanuel Wallerstein Binghamton University, author of The Modern World-System "An up-to-date and synthetic overview of current world-systems research. The authors draw on diverse literatures from political science to archaeology, from contemporary policy issues to Native American studies, and from history to sociology. This thoughtful volume serves as both a provocative summary of ongoing scholarship and a fertile foundation for future cross-disciplinary dialogue." —Gary M. Feinman University of Wisconsin—Madison "To understand the evolution of the world's political economy, we need empirical theories that can handle 'ancient' and 'modern' processes, a longer time frame encompassing multiple millennia, and less concern about trespassing in other people's disciplines. Chase-Dunn and Hall's new book, Rise and Demise, delivers all three with noteworthy style and effect." —William Thompson Indiana University "Rise and Demise is a wide ranging and stimulating synthesis of the world-systems approach and its main findings. Its broad coverage of parallel social processes in various regions and time periods convincingly makes the argument that world-systems theory is able to integrate many diverse historical and social science specializations." —Richard E. Blanton Purdue University