The Modern Transition
The nature and complexity of the
modern transition.
The Nature of the Modern Transition:
- Demographic revolution
- Consumerism
- Industrialisation
- Urbanisation
- Migration & mobility
- Transformation of gender relations
- Unification of time (clocks central).
Social consequences:
- From small, localised, subsistence, kin-based
societies to urbanised, mass production societies where occupation
displaces kin and birth as the key to well being, income, life style, and
life chances
- Family: the household was no longer the basis of
production
- Separation of home and work in urban communities
- Rise of meritocracy: the emergence of industrial society and new
forms of stratification, together with working-class/bourgeoisie, class
& gender conflicts
- New ideological forms:
communism/socialism/nationalism
Imperialism in the Modern Transition:
- Empires become the key agent in the creation of
global modernity
- Imperial political systems and nationalism
- Industrialisation: materials and markets
- Communications: the shrinking of the world
- Exhibitions: show pieces of empire and modernity
-resistance and critiques of empire.