This book investigates modern global civilization, offering an alternative to post-colonial theories and the "multiple modernities" approach (as well as the civilizational theory linked to it). It argues that modernity has become a global civilization that is heterogeneous and intertwined with other civilizations, and also aims at a renewal of critical theory that is not US-centric and Eurocentric, focusing instead on China, South Asia (India) and Latin America (Brazil). Dealing with the themes of centre-periphery relations, complexity (including culture and religion), democracy and emancipatory possibilities, this book is based on general theoretical ideas such as collective subjectivity, the interplay of memory and creativity, and the concept of "modernizing moves," so as to deal with historical contingency.

"A new generation of truly global sociology, grappling with the contemporary world through the lenses of critique, contestation, and social movements. A significant contribution." - Göran Therborn, University of Cambridge "This is a truly global and politically challenging book, bringing together top level researchers and sharply tackling its themes. People from every corner of the planet and from all walks in the social sciences will surely profit from reading it." - Carolina Mera, University of Buenos Aires How can we link contemporary social processes – which have typically been theorized in terms of the concept of modernity – with contemporary social movements, conflicts, and mobilizations which aim at social change? This text: links the social theory of modernity to critical theory and to recent class and citizenship politics as well as to identity politics uses concrete social processes to illustrate theoretical discussion with relevant empirical studies and applies theoretical analysis to different interactions, tensions and possibilities to provide an integrated understanding of global modernity and social contestation includes contributions from distinguished international scholars working in sociological theory and modernity, as well as social movement studies and political contestation, with a strong emphasis on global issues This is a key resource for research in both social theory and the sociology of modernity, as well as social movements and social contestation, and readers interested in globalization and global studies.

This book introduces the concept of global modernity as a paradigm for the analysis of the contemporary era. Building on Parson's distinction between social, cultural, personal and organismic systems, it presents a four-dimensional scheme that aims to identify modernity's key structural components.

In this book, renowned author José Maurício Domingues places Latin America within the third phase of global modern civilization and offers a general theoretical approach to contemporary Latin America. He sees modernity as configured by episodic modernizing moves which, when counting on strong identity and organization as well as clear-cut projects, may assume the aspect of modernizing offensives. Highlighting subjects as law, rights and justice as well as globalization and development, Dominguez places Latin America in the uneven, combined and contradictory development of modern civilization and offers a final assessment of its possibilities and limits. The book will be of interest to researchers and students of modernity, globalization, Latin America, sociological theory and its key concepts.

"A compelling essay on the contemporary human condition." William D. Coleman, Director of the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University "An unusually perceptive and balanced appraisal of the globalization hype and its relation to the reality of global capitalism." Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University In his provocative new book Arif Dirlik argues that the present represents not the beginning of globalization, but its end. We are instead in a new era in the unfolding of capitalism -- "global modernity". The fall of communism in the 1980s generated culturally informed counter-claims to modernity. Globalization has fragmented our understanding of what is "modern". Dirlik's "global modernity" is a concept that enables us to distinguish the present from its Eurocentric past, while recognizing the crucial importance of that past in shaping the present.

The last decade has witnessed a revival of interest in the problems of modernity and modernization. In particular, three major processes have emerged as objects of debate: " The transformations of capitalism manifested in globalization and the unfolding of post-industrial society " The rapid and strong economic development of countries outside the West " The political and economic transformations in the post-Soviet countries of Eastern Europe

This group of essays follows a similar eclectic pattern to that found in Tom Rubens' previous essay-collections published by Imprint Academic. The author's aim is, as before, to appeal widely but also succinctly: in a way that will stimulate readers to develop their own thoughts on, and consult more extensive treatments of, the subjects in question. As regards philosophers referred to in the in text, these include: Democritus, Spinoza, Schopenhauer and Sartre. Subjects explored include: modernity as a condition which is intellectually exacting; the police in England; democracy in relation to culture and society as a whole; philosophical determinism; sexual love; and the American 'Western' film.