THE EAGLE SOARS: A COMMENT ON WALLERSTEIN'S “THE EAGLE HAS CRASH LANDED” Available to Purchase

This comment examines a recent application of world‐system analysis, a neo‐Marxist theory of global historical change. In a recent essay appearing in Foreign Policy, Immanuel Wallerstein (2002), the sociologist who initially proposed and then advanced world‐system analysis in the 1970s and 1980s, predicted that the United States would soon cease to be a hegemonic power. We claim that his interpretation of post‐World War II history and his assessment of contemporary events in the Persian Gulf do more to advance his theory than to honor the facts.