In this major, paradigm-shifting work, Kojin Karatani systematically re-reads Marx's version of world history, shifting the focus of critique from modes of production to modes of exchange. Karatani seeks to understand both Capital-Nation-State, the interlocking system that is the dominant form of modern global society, and the possibilities for superseding it. In The Structure of World History, he traces different modes of exchange, including the pooling of resources that characterizes nomadic tribes, the gift exchange systems developed after the adoption of fixed-settlement agriculture, the exchange of obedience for protection that arises with the emergence of the state, the commodity exchanges that characterize capitalism, and, finally, a future mode of exchange based on the return of gift exchange, albeit modified for the contemporary moment. He argues that this final stage-marking the overcoming of capital, nation, and state-is best understood in light of Kant's writings on eternal peace. The Structure of World History is in many ways the capstone of Karatani's brilliant career, yet it also signals new directions in his thought.
Kojin Karatani is an internationally renowned theorist and philosopher. Previously, he was a professor at Hosei University in Tokyo, Kinki University in Osaka, and Columbia University. Among the dozens of books that he has written in Japanese, four have been translated into English: History and Repetition; Transcritique: Kant and Marx; Architecture as Metaphor: Language, Number, Money; and Origins of Modern Japanese Literature, which is also published by Duke University Press.
Translator's Note vii Author's Preface to the English Translation ix Preface xiii Introduction. On Modes of Exchange 1 Part I. Mini World Systems 29 1. The Sedentary Revolution 35 2. The Gift and Magic 50 Part II. World-Empire 57 3. The State 63 4. World Money 81 5. World Empires 104 6. Universal Religions 127 Part III. The Modern World System 157 7. The Modern State 165 8. Industrial Capital 182 9. Nation 209 10. Associationism 228 Part IV. The Present and the Future 265 11. The Stages of Global Capitalism and Repetition 267 12. Toward a World Republic 285 Acknowledgments 309 Notes 311 Bibliography 339 Index
"Kojin Karatani's last great work, Transcritique: On Kant and Marx, set off a chain of theoretical explosions, Slavoj eiuek's The Parallax View not least among them. This latest book returns to the Borromean knot of Capital-Nation-State from a rotated perspective; privileging modes of exchange over modes of production, it is a revolutionary rethinking of the historical emergence of that triadic structure and its various transformations. The 'Karatani-turn' will no doubt re-start serious debate about the form and future of capitalism." - Joan Copjec, author of Imagine There's No Woman: Ethics and Sublimation
