Most of Andre Gunder Frank's early work on thenature of underdevelopment focused on one continent: Latin America. Herehe broadened his canvas and traced the world-wide effects of theprocess of capital accumulation from the period just prior to thediscovery of America to the industrial and French revolutions. It isFrank's thesis that the world has experienced a single all-embracing,albeit unequal and uneven, process of capital accumulation centered inWestern Europe, which has been capitalist for at least two centuries.