Comparing Modernities


Book Description

The authors of this collection, renowned scholars from around the world, explore the tensions and dilemmas that impact pluralism and homogeneity in modern societies. This book is in homage to Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt. We honor his ground-breaking work in the comparative study of modernities and civilizations.




Comparing Modernities


Book Description

The authors of this collection, renowned scholars from around the world, explore the tensions and dilemmas that impact pluralism and homogeneity in modern societies. This book is in homage to Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt. We honor his ground-breaking work in the comparative study of modernities and civilizations.




Alternative Modernities


Book Description

A special issue of PUBLIC CULTURE, this volume of essays examines modernity from transnational and transcultural perspectives, holding that within different cultures, there are different starting points of the transition to modernity that lead to differen




Comparative civilizations and multiple modernities. 1(2003)


Book Description

Annotation. This collection of essays provides an analysis of the dynamics of Civilizations. The processes of globalization and of world history are described from a comparative sociological point of view in a Weberian tradition. These essays were written between 1974 and 2002 by one of the most eminent sociologists of today.




Entangled Paths Towards Modernity


Book Description

This is an important and innovative comparative study of socialist movements and regimes of modernization in the Balkans, encompassing Serbian populism, Bulgarian social democracy and Greek communism. It makes an original contribution both to the history of political ideas and to the political sociology of radical and socialist movements. It provides a fascinating account of the transplantation of ideologies that were adopted from Western Europe and from Russia into the very different environment of the Balkans, and traces their adaptation and their reception in this new environment. Book jacket.




Multiple Modernities


Book Description

How may we characterize contemporary society in a world so complex? Can looking at the diverse paths followed by various cultures in the modern world generate useful new social scientific typologies, or must a different set of questions be posed in this era of globalization? What, in short, is the nature of modernity? These are some of the questions addressed by the contributors to Multiple Modernities.Following the theme in an earlier work edited by Shmuel Eisenstadt, Public Spheres and Collective Identities, this book challenges conventional notions of how the world has changed politically, socially, and economically. The authors consider the meaning of modernity in contexts as different as communist Russia, modern India, the Muslim world, Latin America, China and East Asia, and the United States. Miscegenation, transnational migration, technological developments, and changing communications have shifted the ground on which theories of society were once built; political system, diaspora groups, religion, and ""classical"" theories of modernity have to be reconsidered in a new context.Authors and chapters include: S.N. Eisenstadt, ""Multiple Modernities""; Bjrn Wittrock, ""Modernity: One, None, or Many? European Origins and Modernity as a Global Condition""; Johann P. Arnason, ""Communism and Modernity""; Nilfer Gle, ""Snapshots of Islamic Modernities""; Dale F. Eickelman, ""Island and the Languages of Modernity""; Sudipta Kaviraj, ""Modernity and Politics in India""; Stanley J. Tambiah, ""Transnational Movements, Diaspora, and Multiple Modernities""; Tu Weiming, ""Implications of the Jrise of 'Confucian' East Asia""; Jrgen Heideking, ""The Pattern of American Modernity from the Revolution to the Civil War""; and Renato Ortiz, ""From Incomplete Modernity to World Modernity.""Written in clear and non-technical language for both a scholarly and general audience, this volume confronts the problem of just what constitutes the common core of modernit




The Dark Side of Modernity


Book Description

In this book, one of the world’s leading social theorists presents a critical, alarmed, but also nuanced understanding of the post-traditional world we inhabit today. Jeffrey Alexander writes about modernity as historical time and social condition, but also as ideology and utopia. The idea of modernity embodies the Enlightenment’s noble hopes for progress and rationality, but its reality brings great suffering and exposes the destructive impulses that continue to motivate humankind. Alexander examines how twentieth-century theorists struggled to comprehend the Janus-faced character of modernity, which looks backward and forward at the same time. Weber linked the triumph of worldly asceticism to liberating autonomy but also ruthless domination, describing flights from rationalization as systemic and dangerous. Simmel pointed to the otherness haunting modernity, even as he normalized the stranger. Eisenstadt celebrated Axial Age transcendence, but acknowledged its increasing capacity for barbarity. Parsons heralded American community, but ignored modernity’s fragmentations. Rather than seeking to resolve modernity’s contradictions, Alexander argues that social theory should accept its Janus-faced character. It is a dangerous delusion to think that modernity can eliminate evil. Civil inclusion and anti-civil exclusion are intertwined. Alexander enumerates dangerous frictions endemic to modernity, but he also suggests new lines of social amelioration and emotional repair.




Shaping a Humane World


Book Description

The generation of meaning is the primary precondition for acting and thinking. The essays in this volume contribute to a discourse on this matter with a decentred, globalized world in mind. The notions civilization, humanism and modernity - far from being exclusively Western ideas - may facilitate joint efforts of reflecting on the universality of current human conditions, particularly since such reflexion is possible from particular cultural perspectives. Modernity presents us with a second Axial Time in which the quest for a plural, but shared, humane world is the challenge.




Islam and Modernity


Book Description

Recent events have focused attention on the perceived differences and tensions between the Muslim world and the modern West. As a major strand of Western public discourse has it, Islam appears resistant to internal development and remains inherently pre-modern. However Muslim societies have experienced most of the same structural changes that have impacted upon all societies: massive urbanisation, mass education, dramatically increased communication, the emergence of new types of institutions and associations, some measure of political mobilisation, and major transformations of the economy. These developments are accompanied by a wide range of social movements and by complex and varied religious and ideological debates. This textbook is a pioneering study providing an introduction to and overview of the debates and questions that have emerged regarding Islam and modernity. Key issues are selected to give readers an understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The various manifestations of modernity in Muslim life discussed include social change and the transformation of political and religious institutions, gender politics, changing legal regimes, devotional practices and forms of religious association, shifts in religious authority, and modern developments in Muslim religious thought.




Comparative Early Modernities


Book Description

Recent historical scholarship has shown the way towards a geographically capacious conception of the early modern world. Featuring essays by nine leading scholars of early modern Asia and Europe, Comparative Early Modernities casts aside the legacies of European exceptionalism to reveal the interconnected multiplicity of the early modern world and of the variety of unexpected pathways linking these histories to the evolving modernities of the 21st century. In their fresh and provocative examinations of topics in literature, philosophy, art history, and political economy, the authors transform our understanding of global early modernity and reassess the theoretical and methodological premises of comparative historical studies.