An explanation of human history that focuses on the development of large-scale social systems such as banking, international trade, geopolitical alliances, and technological advancement. It emerged in the 1970s via the work of the Marxism economists and historians, Samir Amin, André Gunder Frank, and Wallerstein, Immanuel. Influenced by the Annales School of history, its perspective is rigorously longue durée, always taking things back to the point of emergence of a particular type of system (thus it tends to dismiss globalization for failing to observe that economic systems like capitalism have been global since their inception). Moreover, it is rigorously international in its geographical perspective (but is, nevertheless, mindful of the kinds of geospatial iniquities dependency theory emphasizes). Further Reading: C. Chase-Dunn Global Formation (1998). T. Shannon Introduction to the World-Systems Perspective (1996).