The Spiral of Capitalism and Socialism: Toward Global Democracy. By Terry Boswell and Christopher Chase-Dunn. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000. 281p. $55.00 cloth, $23.50 paper.

Abstract

In introductory international relations courses, we were once accustomed to contrast three alternative approaches: realism, liberalism, and Marxism. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the proclaimed triumph of liberal politicoeconomic ideas has led to a deemphasis on the third paradigm or, in some cases, its substitution by constructivism. But, contrary to Fukuyama, history has not quite ended. Neo-Marxist inter- pretations of international relations persist, and new and interesting ones continue to emerge. The latest entry, Boswell and Chase-Dunn's new book, is a case in point. As long-time and leading contributors to world systems theory, they employ their theoretical interpretation of modern his- tory (the last 500 years) to explain what went wrong with socialism and how the socialist strategy might still be salvaged in a future world-system (with a hyphen).