The system crisis of modern world order promoted significant devaluation of the technogenenic and technocratic approach to the present and the past of humanity and determined the growth of global attention to alternative concepts. The authors of the article focus on the World- System theory in I. Wallerstein’s interpretation, its place and role in contemporary social science. Revealing versatile roots of this concept, the authors demonstrate specific theoretical constructions, that Wallerstein borrowed from his teachers — K. Polany, J. Schumpeter, M. Weber and particularly from F. Braudel, who became the true precursor of World-Systems analysis. The article shows not only the components of the world-system theories to the extent required but also the process of their synthesis. The authors found no reason to identify this theory as neo- Marxist or liberal. They think that such opposition has lost much of its relevance today. However, they pay tribute to global task of universalization of research apparatus and creation of unified social science, posed by Wallerstein. Such perspective is quite evident in his own works, which integrate data from all branches of modern social science.