Abstract of: 

   ABUSES AND SOME USES OF WORLD SYSTEMS THEORY IN ARCHAEOLOGY*
 
                            by
 
                      ANDRE GUNDER FRANK
                    University of Amsterdam
 
          96 Asquith Ave. Toronto, Ont. Canada M4W 1J8
          Tel:416-972 0616  Fax:416-972 0071 & 978 3963
                e-mail: agfrank@epas.utoronto.ca
 
______________________
This is a 12,000 word = 24 single space page critical commentary
on and "constructive critique" of each of the papers presented at
the session on "Leadership, Production, and Exchange: Global
Applications of World Systems Theory" organized by Nick Kardulias
under the sponsorship of the Archaeology Division of the American
Anthropological Association at its 94th Annual Meetings in
Washington DC. November 15, 1995.  These papers have been
"published" in the electronic JOURNAL OF WORLD SYSTEM RESEARCH
vol. 2, but without this comment, which is to be included only in
the printed book version also edited by Nick Kardulias. Since
publication of this book has not yet started, I offer earlier
access by other means to this critique of the electronically
collected papers to interested readers of the latter [or to those
who wish only a critical summary of the same].
 
[excerpt from the introduction to my "constructive" critique]:
 
The expert participants/contributors already spend enough time
whittling down and shaking the World System Theory [WST] stick
[and Stein breaks and discards it entirely].  I therefore see my
task here to defend and extend/apply WST as far as possible
within the confines of the archaeological problematiques posed by
these various authors. That means the following:  1. First,
identify and call straw men what they are: put up jobs that are
easy targets for critiques which would bounce off the real thing. 
2. Where possible,  display, modify or even build a better world
system mousetrap than those in the third, that is adaptor camp.
They put it to sometimes good and sometimes to questionable use
[Stein, of course, puts the WST mousetrap down altogether]. 3.
Use that WST mousetrap if I can to catch more, bigger, and better
archaeological mice with their own data than the authors
themselves do. Where and when my own ignorance does not permit me
to do all that, I intend to suggest instead how such a WST
mousetrap could potentially be used on the archaeological record 
to extend it and to expand and/or improve its interpretation in
the particular cases under review by the authors in their papers
- and now here by myself in this commentary.