''The Long Twentieth Century'' traces the epochal shifts in the relationship between capital accumulation and state formation over a 700-year period. Borrowing from Braudel, Arrighi argues that the history of capitalism has unfolded as a succession of ''long centuries'' - ages during which a hegemonic power deploying a novel combination of economic and political networks secured control over an expanding world-economic space. The book concludes with an examination of the forces which have shaped and are now poised to undermine America's world power.