Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered

Abstract

Modernization is a term which became fashionable after World War II. It is useful despite its vagueness because it tends to evoke similar associations in contemporary readers. Their first impulse may be to think of “the modern” in terms of present-day technology with its jet-travel, space exploration, and nuclear power. But the common sense of the word “modern” encompasses the whole era since the eighteenth century when inventions like the steam engine and the spinning jenny provided the initial, technical basis for the industrialization of societies. The economic transformation of England coincided with the movement of independence in the American colonies and the creation of the nation-state in the French revolution. Accordingly, the word “modern” also evokes associations with the democratization of societies, especially the destruction of inherited privilege and the declaration of equal rights of citizenship.