International political economy (IPE) is today both too narrow and too broad an intellectual enterprise. Its narrowness derives largely from the rigidities imposed by economics and political science as its primary intellectual mentors. Economics and political science each think of international political economy as a natural part of their academic universe, a distinct solar system perhaps, but one inhabiting a familiar galaxy of thought. Its broadness, on the other hand, is often due to the imperial pretentions harbored by those who identify themselves as international political economists. Few subjects fall outside their intellectual purview: the world is their oyster and they are keen to analyze it as such. As a result, IPE offers something to nearly everyone. It is a field with few boundaries and more than its share of questionable concepts and definitions.

Contrary to many excursions into this new and wide-open field, my purpose in the following pages is to alternately broaden and narrow IPE as an intellectual discipline. I wish to broaden its narrowness by looking beyond politics and economics as its principal intellectual inspirations, in this case towards history and the development of an historical mode of thought about IPE that is capable of breaking down intellectual barriers rooted in disciplinary prejudices. At the same time, I seek to narrow IPE's broadness by arguing that there is a particular subject matter at the heart of IPE which should guide its major lines of inquiry. This subject matter is what Fernand Braudel calls the world-economy, and explicating the meaning of this term and showing how its precepts can guide our inquiries is a central goal of this study.