World-systems economic analysis distorts history by asserting unexamined claims like Portugal’s peaceful fifteenth century.

Evidence

Still, as Castro had warned: “It is impossible to understand the formation of the immense Portuguese Empire solely in terms of economic or statistical analysis.” It might be added that this is particularly the case when such analysis is based on indifferent historical reconstruction. The “peacefulness” of Portugal’s fifteenth century, which C. R. Boxer asserts (and Wallerstein repeats) for example, is to be doubted when one learns elsewhere that the century was punctuated by a martial and diplomatic war with Castile, and that the century ended with the homicidal suppression of a dynastic struggle. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 479

Categorization

• XREF: Robinson’s critique of Wallerstein’s world-systems framework parallels the Frankfurt School critique of positivist/economic reductionism in Winkler’s history.