Peter Wagner 
Modernity 

We live in a modern age, but what does ‘modern’ mean
and how can a reflection on ‘modernity’ help us to
understand the world today? These are the questions that Peter
Wagner sets out to answer in this concise and accessible book.

Wagner begins by returning to the question of modernity’s Western
origins and its claims to open up a new and better era in the
history of humanity. Modernity’s claims and expectations have
become more prevalent and widely shared, but in the course of their
realization and diffusion they have also been radically
transformed. In an acute and engaging analysis, Wagner examines the
following key issues among others:

– Modernity was based on the hope for freedom and reason, but it
created the institutions of contemporary capitalism and democracy.
How does the freedom of the citizen relate to the freedom of the
buyer and seller today? And what does disaffection with capitalism
and democracy entail for the sustainability of modernity?

– Rather than a single model of modernity, there is now a plurality
of forms of modern socio-political organisation. What does this
entail for our idea of progress and our hope that the future world
can be better than the present one?

– All nuance and broadening notwithstanding, our concept of
modernity is in some way inextricably tied to the history of Europe
and the West. How can we compare different forms of modernity in a
‘symmetric’, non-biased or non-Eurocentric way? How can we develop
a world-sociology of modernity?

Inhoudsopgave

Preface
Part I
Re-theorizing modernity
Chapter 1
Retrieving modernity’s past, understanding modernity’s present
Chapter 2
Changing views of modernity:
from convergence and stability to plurality and transformations
Chapter 3
Successive modernities:
crisis, criticism and the idea of progress
Chapter 4
Disentangling the concept of modernity:
time, action and problems to be solved
Part II
Analyzing contemporary modernity
Chapter 5
The link between capitalism and democracy reconsidered
Chapter 6
European and non-European trajectories of modernity compared
Chapter 7
Violence and justice in global modernity:
reflections on South Africa with world-sociological intent
Chapter 8
Towards a world-sociology of modernity
References

Over de auteur

Peter Wagner is ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona.