The Indian Ocean in Eurasian and African World-Systems before the Sixteenth Century

摘要: The rise of towns and states the expansion exchange networks have resulted in formation various world-systems Asia, Africa Europe since 4th millenium BC. In 1st century AD, exchanges transformed Indian ocean into a unified stratified space, embedded Eurasian African world-system. This system evolved until 16th through four cycles which saw growing integration its parts, demographic rise, general growth commerce production, simultaneous development hierarchical relations between cores, semi-peripheries peripheries within an international division labor. early history sheds light on period that would follow, emergence modern capitalist world-system, perhaps also provides some hints as to possible futures system.