Re: J. Timmons Roberts idea (9/15/97) of producing a simple World-Systems
handbook:
>Do people like the idea of a PEWS conference on "What Activists and Citizens
>Need to know about World-Systems Theory" ?? The goal would be to translate
>our work into a handbook written in plain English, with case-studies of
>important cases.
>
>Just an idea.
>
Yes! A very good idea.
More urgently though, it is time that one of the scholars in the
world-systems field writes an accessible, mainstream book which aims to
introduce the notion of the modern world-system to the wider reading public
- and to communicate some of the basic insights that it gives us into our
world to a general audience.
For example, discoveries and new theories in physics are successfully
brought to the general public through books by the likes of Paul Davies.
David Suzuki's books explain the ecological crisis to people simply and
powerfully. The same can (and must) be done with the world-systems
perspective. Moreover, the best-seller status of John Ralston Saul's book
"The Unconscious Civilization", reveals a very widespread disillusionment, a
hunger for explanations, and a groping for some kind of alternative. The
time is ripe for it.
A mainstream work on the modern world-system would be published by a
mainstream publisher and retail widely as any work of popular science. The
author would have to be willing and able to give press, TV and radio
interviews when the book is launched, and must have the ability to write and
speak effectively to a non-academic audience. I'm also assuming that the
author actually believes in some of what he/she is writing, and has some
kind of commitment to an alternative world order. Perhaps W. Warren Wagar
would be right for the job?
The chance discovery of the world-systems perspective within the last year,
has been to this humble undergraduate student, immensely important and was a
major part of a significant transformation in my 'world-view'.
I feel that laying bare the historical workings of the capitalist economy to
a wider audience - ripping WST out from the obscure academic closet - would
be the most useful thing a WS academic could do right now. If, that is,
you're really serious about organizing for antisystemic alternatives.
Who will take up the challenge?
- Jonathan Gadir