from Part I - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2026
The social sciences and history need to mount a matching response to the Anthropocene crisis to that constructed by the natural sciences in the form of Earth Systems Science. Humankind is facing major changes to its conditions of existence. While the natural sciences have done an exemplary job of assessing the limits of planetary carrying capacity, they are not well equipped to understand the social side of this equation. The chapter sets up the idea of a World System Science to complement and extend what ESS has done (and continues to do). It looks at the methodological and conceptual compatibilities and differences between ESS and WSS, and at how concepts such as system, can both unite and divide them. It begins to set out how WSS might be developed, and what it might aim to do.
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