As our understanding of disaster shifts from an event concentrated in time and space to a social occasion occurring across time and space, so too must our explanations of disaster shift from theories of the middle range to broader theoretical frameworks. We explore the world-system approach in an effort to understand the upper limits of theory for disaster and offer this approach as a better understanding of how long-term development shapes social change. Utilizing media reports of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami from the United States to India, Indonesia and Thailand over a one-year period, we find perceptions of aid vary by economic zones and nation-states in the contemporary world system. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table and 3 notes.)