The Structure of World History

Introduction

Published in 2010 and in English in 2014, the book reorganises the history of social formations around modes of exchange instead of modes of production. Mode A is the reciprocity of the gift, B plunder and redistribution by the state, C commodity exchange, and D a mode that would restore reciprocity at a higher level. Capital, nation and state form an interlocking knot that the dominant modes produce. Mode D appears in history in universal religions and in ideas such as Kant’s federation of nations, and Karatani treats it as a regulative idea. The book is his most comprehensive work.

Connections

Builds on

• Capital1867 · Karl Marx
• Transcritique: On Kant and Marx2001 · Karatani Kōjin

More works by Karatani Kōjin

• 1980Origins of Modern Japanese Literature
• 2001Transcritique: On Kant and Marx