Today we are witnessing the final act of the American cycle
Giovanni Arrighi’s1 conceptual framework, set out in great detail in his masterpiece The Long Twentieth Century, offers a powerful tool for analyzing world history through the lens of systemic cycles of accumulation.
Building on the ideas of Fernand Braudel (whose works such as The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II and The Grammar of Civilizations explore la longue durée – the “long duration” of historical processes), Arigi outlines the sequence of four “long centuries,” each dominated by a different hegemon: Genoa, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and the United States.
Today, with the American cycle entering its final stage of financial expansion and systemic crisis – a phase in which capital accumulation is shifting from material production to speculative finance – the question of the Fifth Hegemon becomes central.
