Re: Civilizations and Historical World Systems

"Would it not be more useful if we didn't reify civilizations?  One way to 
think about China is to think of it as a name linked to a geographic location 
in which there existed successive historical systems, which had a few features 
in common, and each of which sustained (for a good deal of the time) myths 
concerning civilization continuity.  In that case, instead of China the 
civilization, we are perhaps talking empirically of five, six, or seven 
different historical systems...  China is no doubt the strongest case for a 
civilizationalist thesis.  It becomes harder to demonstrate inherent cultural 
continuities everywhere else.  To be sure, if we narrow our analysis to the 
scale and scope of a single historical system, then a 'geoculture' is part of 
its 'systemness'."--Immanuel Wallerstein, "Hold the Tiller Firm: On Method and 
the Unit of Analysis" in "The Essential Wallerstein", p149-159.
Steven Sherman