Theory as History, which was awarded the Deutscher Memorial Prize in 2011, collects together several of Jairus Banaji’s essays published over the course of 30 years. This symposium comprises four essays engaging with different aspects of the powerful and provocative contributions in Theory as History, as well as an essay in response by Banaji. The Editorial Introduction sketches elements of Banaji’s work and highlights some of the main arguments advanced in the symposium.

Giovanni Arrighi was a leading figure in the development of world-systems theory and also contributed to a range of debates in Marxist thought. This symposium engages with Arrighi’s last book, Adam Smith in Beijing, which was the final instalment in his ‘trilogy’, following The Long Twentieth Century and Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System. This Editorial Introduction traces the broad trajectory of Arrighi’s ‘trilogy’ and its concern with systemic cycles of accumulation, highlights additional major contributions by Arrighi, and (...) sketches some of the central arguments of the five symposium articles. *. (shrink)