Modernity

This text traces the development of the concept of modernity from the ways in which the founding thinkers of sociology contrasted their contemporary world with what had gone before. Craib then shows how these themes were developed through theories of and debates about modernization in mid-20th century. He looks at the theoretical debates in sociology in the 1970s and 80s which together with wider political developments that saw the idea of capitalism decline in popularity to be replaced by the idea of modernity and postmodernity. Craib suggests that the idea of modernity only really emerges after the idea of postmodernity and for many people provided an alternative to Marxist ideas, and it carries with it some of the more simplistic ideas of the modernization theories.