Uncertainties of Time

Examining the concept of TimeSpace in the work of Immanuel Wallerstein and its crucial role within world-systems analysis, Uncertainties of Time brings together important but previously hard-to-access material from Wallerstein’s writings.

TimeSpace is a concept developed from Wallerstein’s earliest days in the 1970s until well-into the twenty-first century, drawing from the historian Fernand Braudel and the chemist Ilya Prigogine, to rethink historical time’s two overlooked modes—long enduring or eternal time, on the one hand, and, on the other, uncertainty in world-systems. He, thereby, invented a fresh innovation of historical social sciences that brought together economics, politics, and sociology.

This book is an essential volume for understanding Wallerstein’s unique contributions to the understanding of the Modern World-System, which he argued came to an end after the world revolution of 1968—leaving us now in an indeterminate world of chaos. This book is thereby invaluable as a resource for researchers and students who care about the history and decline of our chaotic world.

Immanuel Wallerstein was Senior Research Fellow in Sociology at Yale from 2000 until his death in 2019. From 1976 to 1999, he was Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University (SUNY), where he founded and directed the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations. Wallerstein was recognized for his brilliance the world-over. His many books and countless articles have been translated into dozens of languages. Of them his world-renowned four-volume history of The Modern World-System is a masterful examination of the Western world from 1500 to the modern era. He is now and will be for time to come considered by many the most influential social scientist of his era.

Charles Lemert is University Professor Emeritus at Wesleyan University, USA. He has written extensively on social theory, globalization, and culture. Among more than fifty books, he is author of Muhammad Ali: Trickster in the Culture of Irony (2003), Postmodernism is Not What You Think (2005), Globalization: An Introduction to the End of the Known World (2015), and editor of Social Theory: The Multicultural, Global, and Classic Readings (2021). His recent books include Americans Thinking America and Silence and Society (both 2025).