This book delineates the systemic roles assumed by the various regions of the world and by European merchant capital and explains the tensions within intercultural commercial system that ensured its continued dynamism and eventual transformation into the current world economic system.  Meer

This is an exploration in world history that examines complex and intriguing questions concerning the origins of the first truly global economy, centered in Europe, which served in turn as a solid basis for the later emergence of the modern world system.  Meer