Some reflections on history, the social sciences, and politics; Acknowledgments; Part I. The Inequalities of Core and Periphery: 1. The rise and future demise of the world capitalist system: concepts for comparative analysis; 2. Three paths of national development in sixteenth-century Europe; 3. The present state of the debate on world inequality; 4. Dependence in an interdependent world: the limited possibilities of transformation within the capitalist world-economy; 5. Semiperipheral countries and the contemporary world crisis; 6. The rural economy in modern world society; 7. Modernization: requiescat in pace; 8. From feudalism to capitalism: transition or transitions?; 9. A world-system perspective on the social sciences; Part II. The Inequalities of Class, Race and Ethnicity: 10. Social conflict in post-independence Black Africa: the concepts of race and status group reconsidered; 11. The two modes of ethnic consciousness: Soviet Central Asia in transition; 12. Class and class conflict in contemporary Africa; 13. American slavery and the capitalist world-economy; 14. Class formation in the capitalist world-economy; Part III. Political Strategies: 15. Old problems and new syntheses: the relation of revolutionary ideas and practices; 16. Fanon and the revolutionary class; 17. An historical perspective on the emergence of the new international order: economic, political, cultural aspects; Concluding essay; 18. Class conflict in the capitalist world-economy; Index.