Immanuel Wallerstein, Eric Hobsbawm, Eric Wolf but also Andre Gunder Frank and Samir Amin have developed historical accounts of the rise of capitalism that stress the shaping impact of the world economy. In so doing they have devised new conceptual tools for discussing the history of humanity, and a new terrain on which to situate it. The social and economic interactions of peoples, rather than the cultural interchanges of civilizations, constitute the building blocks of this new perspective.