Giovanni Arrighi
Encyclopedia
Giovanni Arrighi was a scholar of political economy
and sociology
, and as of 1998 a Professor
of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University
. His work has been translated into over fifteen languages.
Arrighi was born in Italy
in 1937. He received his PhD
in economics
from the Bocconi University
in 1960. Arrighi began his career teaching at the University College of Rhodesia
(now Zimbabwe
) and later at the University College of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania
. During this period he developed arguments about how the labor supply and labor resistance affected the development of colonialism
and national liberation movements. It was there that he met Immanuel Wallerstein
, later a collaborator on a number of research projects. After returning to Italy in 1969, Arrighi and others formed the "Gruppo Gramsci" in 1971. In 1979 Arrighi joined Wallerstein and Terence Hopkins as a professor of sociology at the Fernand Braudel Center
for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations at SUNY Binghamton. It was during this time that the Fernand Braudel Center became known as the main center of world-systems analysis, attracting scholars from all over the world.
His most famous work was a trilogy on the origins and transformations of global capitalism
, which began in 1994 with a book that reinterpreted the evolution of capitalism, The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. The book is a classic in the field, published in at least ten languages. Giovanni completed a second edition of The Long Twentieth Century in 2009. In 1999, he published Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System with Beverly Silver, and in 2007, he published Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century, comparing Western and East Asian economic development and exploring China
’s rise as an economic world power.
Although in many ways intellectually close to Immanuel Wallerstein
, Arrighi tends to ascribe greater significance to the recent shift in economic power to East Asia
. He also emphasized his debt to Adam Smith
, Max Weber
, Karl Marx
, Antonio Gramsci
, Karl Polanyi
and Joseph Schumpeter
.
Arrighi died in his home in Baltimore on June 18, 2009 at 11 a.m. He had been diagnosed with cancer
in July 2008. He is survived by his wife and partner in scholarship, Professor Beverly Silver
, and his son Andrea Arrighi.
A retrospective interview by David Harvey
on his intellectual trajectory, The Winding Paths of Capital, was published in the March/April 2009 issue of New Left Review
.
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, and as of 1998 a Professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
. His work has been translated into over fifteen languages.
Arrighi was born in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
in 1937. He received his PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
from the Bocconi University
Bocconi University
Bocconi University is a private university located in central Milan, beside Parco Ravizza. Bocconi provides undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate education, in addition to a range of double degree programs, in the fields of economics, management, finance and law. According to many university...
in 1960. Arrighi began his career teaching at the University College of Rhodesia
University of Zimbabwe
The University of Zimbabwe in Harare, is the oldest and largest university in Zimbabwe. It was founded through a special relationship with the University of London and it opened its doors to its first students in 1952. The university has ten faculties offering a wide variety of degree programmes...
(now Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
) and later at the University College of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
. During this period he developed arguments about how the labor supply and labor resistance affected the development of colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
and national liberation movements. It was there that he met Immanuel Wallerstein
Immanuel Wallerstein
Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein is a US sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems analyst...
, later a collaborator on a number of research projects. After returning to Italy in 1969, Arrighi and others formed the "Gruppo Gramsci" in 1971. In 1979 Arrighi joined Wallerstein and Terence Hopkins as a professor of sociology at the Fernand Braudel Center
Fernand Braudel Center
The Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations at Binghamton University, State University of New York was founded in September 1976 and serves as one of the preeminent centers for advanced study of systemic history and historiography in the US...
for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations at SUNY Binghamton. It was during this time that the Fernand Braudel Center became known as the main center of world-systems analysis, attracting scholars from all over the world.
His most famous work was a trilogy on the origins and transformations of global capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, which began in 1994 with a book that reinterpreted the evolution of capitalism, The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. The book is a classic in the field, published in at least ten languages. Giovanni completed a second edition of The Long Twentieth Century in 2009. In 1999, he published Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System with Beverly Silver, and in 2007, he published Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century, comparing Western and East Asian economic development and exploring China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
’s rise as an economic world power.
Although in many ways intellectually close to Immanuel Wallerstein
Immanuel Wallerstein
Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein is a US sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems analyst...
, Arrighi tends to ascribe greater significance to the recent shift in economic power to East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
. He also emphasized his debt to Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
, Max Weber
Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...
, Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian writer, politician, political philosopher, and linguist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime...
, Karl Polanyi
Karl Polanyi
Karl Paul Polanyi was a Hungarian philosopher, political economist and economic anthropologist known for his opposition to traditional economic thought and his book The Great Transformation...
and Joseph Schumpeter
Joseph Schumpeter
Joseph Alois Schumpeter was an Austrian-Hungarian-American economist and political scientist. He popularized the term "creative destruction" in economics.-Life:...
.
Arrighi died in his home in Baltimore on June 18, 2009 at 11 a.m. He had been diagnosed with cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
in July 2008. He is survived by his wife and partner in scholarship, Professor Beverly Silver
Beverly J. Silver
Beverly J. Silver is an American scholar of labor and development whose work has been translated into over twelve languages. She is a professor of Sociology at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.-Training and Academic Career:...
, and his son Andrea Arrighi.
A retrospective interview by David Harvey
David Harvey (geographer)
David Harvey is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York . A leading social theorist of international standing, he received his PhD in Geography from University of Cambridge in 1961. Widely influential, he is among the top 20 most cited...
on his intellectual trajectory, The Winding Paths of Capital, was published in the March/April 2009 issue of New Left Review
New Left Review
New Left Review is a 160-page journal, published every two months from London, devoted to world politics, economy and culture. Often compared to the French-language Les Temps modernes, it is associated with Verso Books , and regularly features the essays of authorities on contemporary social...
.
Monographs
- 1967 The Political Economy of Rhodesia
- 1973 Essays on the Political Economy of Africa
- 1978 Geometry of Imperialism
- 1982 Dynamics of Global Crisis
- 1985 Semiperipheral Development: The Politics of Southern Europe in the Twentieth Century
- 1989 Antisystemic Movements
- 1990 Transforming the Revolution: Social Movements and the World System
- 1994 The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times
- 1999 Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System (with Beverly J. SilverBeverly J. SilverBeverly J. Silver is an American scholar of labor and development whose work has been translated into over twelve languages. She is a professor of Sociology at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.-Training and Academic Career:...
) - 2003 The Resurgence of East Asia: 500, 150 And 50 Year Perspectives
- 2007 Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century Reviewed by Mark Elvin, New Left Review, 52, July-August, 2008.
Journal articles and book chapters since 2001
- "Workers North and South" (with B.J. Silver) in C. Leys and L. Panich, eds., The Socialist Register 2001. London: The Merlin Press, 2000. Reprinted (abridged) in L. Amoore, ed., The Global Resistance Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.
- Italian translation, 2001; reprinted 2004.
- Turkish translation, 2001.
- Korean translation, 2005.
- "Braudel, Capitalism and the New Economic Sociology", Review, XXIV, 1, 2001.
- "Capitalist development in World-historical Perspective", (with J. Moore). In R. Albritton, M. Itoh, R. Westra, A. Zuege, (eds.), Phases of Capitalist Development: Booms, Crises and Globalization. London: Macmillan, 2001.
- German translation (abridged), 2001
- Chinese translation, 2004
- "Capitalism and World Dis(order)" (with B. J. Silver), Review of International Studies, XXVII, 2001.
- "Global Capitalism and the Persistence of the North-South Divide", Science and Society, LXIV, 4, 2001.
- "The African Crisis. World Systemic and Regional Aspects". New Left ReviewNew Left ReviewNew Left Review is a 160-page journal, published every two months from London, devoted to world politics, economy and culture. Often compared to the French-language Les Temps modernes, it is associated with Verso Books , and regularly features the essays of authorities on contemporary social...
II/15 (May-June 2002).
- Spanish translation, 2002.
- "Lineages of Empire". Historical Materialism 10, 3, 2002. Reprinted in In G. Balakrishnan, ed., Debating Empire. London and New York: Verso, 2003.
- French translation, 2002
- Italian translation, 2002
- Spanish translation, 2002
- German translation 2003
- Chinese translation 2003.
- "Industrial Convergence, Globalization, and the Persistence of the North-South Divide". Studies in Comparative International Development 38: 1 (2003) (with B.J. Silver and B.D. Brewer).
- "Response". Studies in Comparative International Development 38: 1 (2003) (with B.J. Silver and B.D. Brewer).
- "The Social and Political Economy of Global Turbulence". New Left Review II/20 (March-April 2003)
- Spanish translation, 2003
- "Kindai Sekai Shisutem no Keisei to Henyou ni okeru Hegemonii Kokka no Yakuwari" ("The Role of Hegemonic States in the Formation and Transitions of the Modern World-System"). In T. Matsuda and S. Akita, eds., Hegemonii Kokka to Sekai Shisutem (Hegemonic States and the Modern World-System). Tokyo: Yamakawa Publishing Company, 2002.
- "Historical Capitalism East and West" (with P.K. Hui, H. Hung, and M. Selden). In G. Arrighi, T. Hamashita and M. Selden, eds., The Resurgence of East Asia: 500, 150 and 50 Year Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.
- "Global Inequalities and the Legacy of Dependency Theory". Radical Philosophy Review 5: 1-2 (2002/2003).
- "Polanyi’s ‘Double Movement’: The Belles Epoques of British and US Hegemony Compared" (with B.J. Silver). Politics and Society 31: 2 (2003).
- "Il lungo XX secolo. Una replica". Contemporanea 6:4 (2003).
- "Poza hegemoniami zachodnimi" (with I. Ahmad and M. Shih). Lewa Noga 15 (2003).
- "Hegemony and Antisystemic Movements". In I. Wallerstein, ed., The Modern World-System in the Longue Duree. Boulder, Co: Paradigm Publishers, 2004
- Portuguese translation, 2003
- "Globalization in World-Systems Perspective". In R. Appelbaum and W. Robinson, eds., Critical Globalization Studies. New York and London: Routledge, 2005.
- "Hegemony Unraveling–I". New Left Review II/32 (March-April 2005).
- "Hegemony Unraveling–II". New Left Review II/33 (May-June 2005).
- "Rough Road to Empire". In F. Tabak, ed., Allies as Rivals: The U.S., Europe, and Japan in a Changing World-System. Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm Press, 2005.
- Italian translation, 2004
- French translation, 2004
- Russian translation, 2004
- "States, Markets and Capitalism, East and West". In M. Miller, ed., Worlds of Capitalism. Institutions, Economic Performance, and Governance in the Era of Globalization. London: Routledge, 2005
- Chinese translation, 2004
- German translation, 2005
- "Industrial Convergence and the Persistence of the North-South Industrial Divide: A Rejoinder" (with Beverly J. Silver and Benjamin D. Brewer). Studies in Comparative International Development, Summer 2005, in press.