Acknowledgements
The pages that follow have a long history. I completed Crises and Hegemonic Transitions: From Gramsci’s Quaderni to the Contemporary World Economy in Mexico City, whilst researching and teaching as Visiting Professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. Yet I started to work on this project in London, and this book represents a slightly modified and updated version of my PhD Thesis Hegemony and Crises: On the Relation between World Market Crises and Hegemonic Transitions, which I completed at King’s College London in 2013.
This project would not have been possible without the support of many to whom I am grateful. Alex Callinicos, my first supervisor, has been an irreplaceable guide throughout the period of my doctoral studies and beyond. His insistence on accuracy at every stage gave an important direction to my work, yet he left me room to develop my own ideas and thoughts – a combination that has been invaluable. In addition, I am deeply grateful to him, Adam Fabry, a further anonymous reviewer and Francesca Antonini for their comments and suggestions on the draft manuscript of this book, though I remain, of course, fully responsible for any shortcomings. I am also grateful to Simona Talani, my second supervisor, whose suggestions have been pertinent and were a great help in improving the drafts of several chapters. Moreover, I wish to thank Stathis Kouvelakis for his suggestions with regards to the theoretical part of the book in particular. I also thank my thesis examiners, Adam David Morton and Gilbert Achcar, for their deeply valuable comments and suggestions. I am also thankful to the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the University of Zurich for their funding of this project.
Also, I wish to reiterate my gratitude to friends, colleagues and activists whom I had the privilege of meeting while in London. Aude de Caunes welcomed me as I arrived to London. In John Bowden and Jeremy Drinkall I found exceptionally supportive housemates. I am very thankful to Bue Hansen, Céline Cantat, Paolo Chiocchetti and again to Aude and Adam, with whom I had an ongoing exchange about my research and who have continuously stimulated me to think further. I wish also to thank the participants of the European Studies Research Seminar at King’s College, in particular Simon McMahon, Rob Jackson and John Cooper, for their comments and suggestions.
At the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana I benefited from comments made by members of the Área de sociedad y acumulación capitalista (Capitalist Society and Accumulation Research Group), in particular Abelardo Mariña Flores and Sergio Cámara Izquierdo. Moreover, I am indebted to Ann Felicity Williams for her suggestions concerning Chapter 2. Also, I am indebted to Alejandro Gonzáles Vazquéz for his great help in updating the data related to the empirical part of this book, and, at the same time, for his stimulating comments. I would further like to thank Rocío Corral Jasso and Rebeca Pareyón Noguez for having double-checked the bibliographical material.
I also greatly benefited from comments and suggestions I received at different academic conferences in which I participated, particularly the Historical Materialism Journal and the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE) conferences. I am grateful to Peter Thomas for his comments and encouragement and to the other editors of the Historical Materialism Book Series with whom I have been in touch, amongst whom, Danny Hayward.
Finally, I cannot thank enough my family for their support and encouragement throughout this period. Beatriu Marcos, to whom I am dedicating this book, has been and continues to be an invaluable, powerful and extremely precise intellectual interlocutor as well as a truly wonderful partner within the home that we are jointly constructing.
Mexico City, October 2016