The Modernization of the Western World

John McGrath, Kathleen Callanan Martin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• ISBN:
  9781040090800
• Edition: 3
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Covering Western history from the ancient world to the current era of globalization, The Modernization of the Western World describes the forces of social change and what they have meant to the lives of the people caught up in them.

The volume presents the history of Western civilization from a historical sociology perspective, introducing readers to the analyses of thinkers like Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Adam Smith, Ferdinand Tönnies, and Max Weber, in order to provide tools for understanding how societies function and change. This application of modernization theory argues, not that what has happened in the West should or even must happen in non-Western societies, but that understanding modernization as a process of social change affords a better understanding of why and how life has changed over the past millennium. The interactions of Western and non-Western societies have had a profound effect on each other; this is the story of the development of a truly global economy. This new edition has been updated to include a final chapter which addresses recent developments—economic disturbances in the global marketplace, cyberwarfare, and the rise of populist movements—testing the relevance of classic modernization theory for today.

Featuring a glossary, maps and illustrations, boxed features, and an extensive index, this book will be of particular interest to students looking to understand world history as well as those interested in historical sociology and modernization theory.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Maps
• Preface to the Third Edition
• Preface to the First Edition
• Acknowledgements
• List of Contributors
• 1 The Modernization of the Western World
• 2 Modernization and Social Change
• 3 The Ancient and Classical Inheritance
• 4 Europe in the Middle Ages: Medieval Society
• 5 The Late Middle Ages and the Transformation of Medieval Society
• 6 The Italian Renaissance
• 7 The Reformation
• 8 Commerce, Cities, and Capitalism
• 9 The Centralization and Rationalization of the Political State
• 10 The Enlightenment
• 11 The French Revolution
• 12 The Industrial Revolution
• 13 Classical Liberalism and the Bourgeois State
• 14 Karl Marx and the Socialist Response to Capitalism
• 15 Nationalism and Nations
• 16 The Age of Empire
• 17 The Great War
• 18 Europe between Wars
• 19 The Rise of Fascism
• 20 Total War: World War II
• 21 The Cold War
• 22 Globalization and Social Change
• 23 Terror and Terrorism
• 24 Arguing about History: Can Modernization Theory Help Us Understand the Perplexing Events of Recent Years?
• Glossary
• Index