European Modernity And Beyond

In this book one of Europe's foremost sociologists offers a profound and accessible overview of the trajectory of European societies, East and West, since the end of World War II. Combining theoretical depth with factual analysis, Göran Therborn addresses the questions that underpin an understanding of the nature of European modernity, including: To what extent is the period 1945-2000 producing fundamental change and what are the areas of continuity? Have the societies of Europe become more similar to others on the globe or more distinctively European? What are the prospects of Europe after decades of postwar change and the end of the Cold War? Issues covered include the division of paid and unpaid labour,

Europe is inseparable from its history. That history has been extensively studied in terms of its political history, its economic history, its religious history, its literary and cultural history, and so on. Could there be a distinctively philosophical history of Europe? Not a history of philosophy in Europe, but a history of Europe that focuses on what, in its history and identity, ties it to philosophy. In the two volumes of Europe: A Philosophical History – The Promise of Modernity and Beyond Modernity – Simon Glendinning takes up this question, telling the story of Europe’s history as a philosophical history. In the wake of two world wars of European origin, Europe’s modern promise of universal peace, freedom and well-being for all humanity lay in ruins. In Part 2, Beyond Modernity, Glendinning picks up the story of this promise after the Second World War. Taking in Isaiah Berlin’s defence of a pluralist ideal, Francis Fukuyama’s vision of a new ‘end of history’ in liberal democracy, and Jacques Derrida’s critique of the very idea of an end of history, Glendinning invites us to affirm a new philosophical-historical self-understanding: not the history of the rational animal on the way to its final end, with Europe at the head, but a history of the unpredictably self-transforming animal without a final end. In this context, Glendinning argues, Europe remains promising, its cosmopolitan heritage opening a future beyond its exhausted modernity. Part 1: The Promise of Modernity is available now from Routledge. ISBN 9781032015804

It is often taken for granted that modernity emerged in Europe and diffused from there across the world. This book questions that assumption and re-examines the question of European modernity in the light of world history. Bo Stråth and Peter Wagner re-position Europe in the global context of the 19th and 20th centuries. They show that Europe is less modern than has been assumed, and modernity less European and thus decentre Europe in a way that makes room for a wider historical perspective. Adopting a thematic structure, the authors reconceive the idea of European modernity in relation to key topics such as democracy, capitalism and market society, individual autonomy, religion and politics. European Modernity is an important addition to the literature that will be of interest to all students and scholars of modern European history.

Europe is inseparable from its history. That history has been extensively studied in terms of its political history, its economic history, its religious history, its literary and cultural history, and so on. Could there be a distinctively philosophical history of Europe? Not a history of philosophy in Europe, but a history of Europe that focuses on what, in its history and identity, ties it to philosophy. In the two volumes of Europe: A Philosophical History - The Promise of Modernity and Beyond Modernity - Simon Glendinning takes up this question, telling the story of Europe’s history as a philosophical history. In Part 1, The Promise of Modernity, Glendinning examines the conception of Europe that links it to ideas of rational Enlightenment and modernity. Tracking this self-understanding as it unfolds in the writings of Kant, Hegel and Marx, Glendinning explores the transition in Europe from a conception of its modernity that was philosophical and religious to one which was philosophical and scientific. While this transition profoundly altered Europe’s own history, Glendinning shows how its self-confident core remained intact in this development. But not for long. This volume ends with an examination of the abrupt shattering of this confidence brought on by the first world-wide war of European origin – and the imminence of a second. The promise of modernity was in ruins. Nothing, for Europe, would ever be the same again.

The story of modernist architects in East Central Europe The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the rise of modernist architects. Brokers of Modernity reveals how East Central Europe turned into one of the pre-eminent testing grounds of the new belief system of modernism. By combining the internationalism of the CIAM organization and the modernising aspirations of the new states built after 1918, the reach of modernist architects extended far beyond their established fields. Yet, these architects paid a price when Europe’s age of extremes intensified. Mainly drawing on Polish, but also wider Central and Eastern European cases, this book delivers a pioneering study of the dynamics of modernist architects as a group, including how they became qualified, how they organized, communicated and attempted to live the modernist lifestyle themselves. In doing so, Brokers of Modernity raises questions concerning collective work in general and also invites us to examine the social role of architects today. Ebook available in Open Access. This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

This book is the first to apply the theory of multiple modernities to the study of nationalism, examining the modernity of nationalism through three major case-studies: Anglo-British, Finnish and Japanese.

This volume of edited essays is the first one in English to offer a critical overview of the specific features of Belgian modernity from 1880 to 1940 in a multiplicity of disciplines: literature and poetry, politics, music, photography and drama. The first half of the book investigates the roots of twentieth century modernity in Belgian fin de siecle across a variety of genres (novel, poetry and drama), not only within but also beyond the boundaries of Symbolism. The contributors go on to examine the explosion of Belgian culture on the international scene with the rise of the avant-gardes, notably Surrealism: and the contribution made in minor genres, such as the popular novels of Simenon and Jean Ray, and the Tintin comics of Herge.

The protest movements that followed the Second World War have recently become the object of study for various disciplines; however, the exchange of ideas between research fields, and comparative research in general, is lacking. An international and interdisciplinary dialogue is vital to not only describe the similarities and differences between the single national movements but also to evaluate how they contributed to the formation and evolution of a transnational civil society in Europe. This volume undertakes this challenge as well as questions some major assumptions of post-1945 protest and social mobilization both in Western and Eastern Europe. Historians, political scientists, sociologists and media studies scholars come together and offer insights into social movement research beyond conventional repertoires of protest and strictly defined periods, borders and paradigms, offering new perspectives on past and present processes of social change of the contemporary world.