David Ormond Wilkinson (born 1939) is a professor of political science at the Department of Political Science of the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

Education and career

After graduating from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

with a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

degree in 1960, Wilkinson was admitted to

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, and received his

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

degrees in 1962 and 1965. Wilkinson joined the faculty of the UCLA Department of Political Science as an assistant professor in 1964 and became a professor in 1975. He also serves as an editor for the '' Comparative Civilizations Review'' and the '' Journal of World-Systems Research.

Scholarship

Wilkinson redefines

civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). ...

on connectedness criterion, not cultural criterion, as "a city-state, cities-state, or tightly linked politico-military network of such states that are not a part of a larger such network", and considers civilizations as

world-systems A world-system is a socioeconomic system, under systems theory, that encompasses part or all of the globe, detailing the aggregate structural result of the sum of the interactions between polities. World-systems are usually larger than single stat ...

. Wilkinson introduces the idea of "Central Civilization" or "Central World-System", which he argues emerged about 1500 BC with the integration of the

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

n and

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

civilizations, and then engulfed the Aegean civilization in 560 BC, Indic civilization in 1000, the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

after the

Age of Discovery The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafarin ...

, and finally the Far Eastern civilizations in 1850. This idea has been followed and developed by other scholars.See, e.g., The notion that the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

are in the same system was also adopted by Ian Morris's award-winning book ''

Why the West Rules—For Now ''Why the West Rules—For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future'' is a history book by a British historian Ian Morris, published in 2010. Content The book compares East and West across the last 15,000 years, arguin ...

'', which defines the West as all civilizations descending from the

Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...

, rather than just the traditional

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.

Selected bibliography

Books

* ''Malraux: An Essay in Political Criticism'',

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...

, 1967, * ''Comparative Foreign Relations: Framework and Methods'', Dickinson Publishing Company, 1969 * ''Revolutionary Civil War: The Elements of Victory and Defeat'', Page-Ficklin Publications, 1975 * ''Deadly Quarrels: Lewis F. Richardson and the Statistical Study of War'',

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by facult ...

, 1980,

Articles

* "Power Polarity in the Far Eastern World System, 1025 BC—AD 1850: Narrative and 25-Year Interval Data", 5 '' Journal of World-Systems Research'' no.3 (Fall 1999). * "Civilizations as Networks: Trade, War, Diplomacy, and Command-Control", 8 '' Complexity'' no.1 (September–October 2002), pp. 82–86.

References

External links

Wilkinson's page at UCLA Department of Political Science
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkinson, David 1939 births Columbia University alumni Harvard College alumni Living people American political scientists University of California, Los Angeles faculty