摘要：This article argues that world-systems theory commits itself to analyses whose form and content is shaped by its own choice of explanatory metaphors. After considering metaphor in academia in general, analysis proceeds from a reading of work by Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein. These scholars rely on systems metaphors because of their explanatory and conceptual power. Metaphors inescapably illuminate some facets of human social life while cloaking others because of the images and connotations they conjure up. Conceptualizing the modern world as a system has the advantages of highlighting patterns, coherence, and regularity. It has the disadvantages of de-emphasizing unique events, irregularities, and isolated trends, and risks reifying fluid boundaries and simplifying complex relationships. The article calls not for world historians to be more literary, but for recognition and further exploration of the fact that world history is already literary.
