Attempts to present a comprehensive picture of human social life from the perspective of the "comparative-historical revolution" in sociology and presents some of the theoretical and empirical work that is now being done by comparative-historical sociologists.

I: Preindustrial and Precapitalist Economies; 1: The Original Affluent Society; 2: Horticulturalists: Economic Behavior in Tribes; 3: Peasants; 4: Trade and Markets in Precapitalist States; II: Capitalism, Industrialism, and Socialism; 5: The Rise and Future Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy; 6: Incorporation in the World-System; 7: Protoindustrialization in Europe; 8: The Emergence and Expansion of Industrial Capitalism; 9: Socialist States in the Capitalist World-Economy; 10: The Revolutions of 1989: Socialism, Capitalism, and Democracy; III: Economic Development and Underdevelopment; 11: The Stages of Economic Growth; 12: The Development of Underdevelopment; 13: Three Paths of Upward Mobility Within the Capitalist World-Economy; 14: The Origins and Development of the Northeast Asian Political Economy; IV: Stratification Systems; 15: The Evolution of Social Stratification; 16: Social Stratification in Agrarian Societies; 17: Corporate Ownership and Control: The Large Corporation and the Capitalist Class; 18: The Theory of Social Closure; V: Political Systems; 19: Poor Man, Rich Man, Big Man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia; 20: Property Rights and the Evolution of Chiefdoms; 21: The Emergence of Pristine States; 22: The Formation of European States, AD 990–1990; 23: Capitalist Development and Democracy; 24: State Breakdowns in the Early Modern World; VI: Race and Ethnicity; 25: Capitalism and Slavery; 26: A Typology of Race Relations; 27: The Origins of Apartheid in South Africa; 28: The Ethnic Revival in the Modern World; VII: Gender Relations; 29: The Status of Women in Agrarian Societies; 30: Women and Capitalism: Oppression or Emancipation?; 31: A General Theory of Gender Stratification; VIII: Educational Systems; 32: Some Comparative Principles of Educational Stratification; 33: Explaining the Origins and Expansion of Mass Education; 34: Educational Qualificationism and the Late-Development Effect; IX: Methods of Comparative Social Research; 35: The Distinctiveness of Comparative Social Science; 36: Cross-Cultural Research