Immanuel Wallerstein

Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein, born on 28 September 1930, is best known for having developed world-systems analysis, a macrohistorical approach to understanding capitalism. He first became interested in world affairs, particularly the anticolonial movement in India, as a teenager living in New York City. After serving in the US Army from 1951 to 1953, he wrote his MA thesis in the burgeoning subfield of political sociology, arguing that McCarthyism was only marginally against communism and, instead, was a program of the “practical right” against the “sophisticated conservatives.” His PhD thesis, however, was on the role of voluntary associations in nationalist movements in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. He won a Ford Foundation Fellowship to conduct his dissertation research in West Africa, working across linguistic barriers. In 1960, Wallerstein first met Frantz Fanon, who became an important and lasting influence on his work. In 1973, Wallerstein became president of the African Studies Association. As a result of his intellectual roots in Africana studies, national liberation, core-periphery relations, and critiques of Eurocentrism continue to be central concerns of his work. Wallerstein earned his BA (1951), MA (1954), and PhD (1959) from Columbia University, where he then joined the faculty. In 1968, he participated in and supported student protests against the university’s complicity in the Vietnam War. From 1971 to 1976, he taught at McGill University before joining the faculty at the State University of New York at Binghamton (SUNY Binghamton). At SUNY Binghamton, he founded the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations, one of the premier institutes supporting research in world-systems analysis. At the Fernand Braudel Center, he became founding editor of the journal Review, the first journal dedicated to world-systems research. In 1994–1995, he chaired the Gulbenkian Commission, which endeavored to break down the disciplinary boundaries among the historical social sciences. He remained at SUNY Binghamton until his retirement in 1999 and since 2000 was Senior Research Scholar at Yale University. Wallerstein died on 31 August 2019 at his home in Branford, CT.