Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Bo Stråth is Emeritus Professor of Nordic, European and World History at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He also taught contemporary history at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.
Peter Wagner is Research Professor at the Catalan Institute for Advanced Studies and Research (ICREA) at the University of Barcelona, Spain.
[The] authors do not resort to jargon, and though the authors’ different writing styles manifest themselves in the work, the ideas of the whole are retained. Excellent text for historiography. Good endnotes; no separate bibliography; good index.
CHOICE
A highly important work operating right at the intersection of two major intellectual challenges of our time period. The authors help us to further decenter our conceptions of modernity while at the same time putting facets of European history newly into global historical contexts.
Dominic Sachsenmaier, Professor, University of Göttingen, Germany
In this fluidly written and rigorously argued book, Strath and Wagner challenge the idea of 'modernity' that began in Europe and then spread elsewhere. In doing so, they offer important insights into the role of markets, trade, colonialism, and globalization in the making of the modern world. The book 'provincializes' both Europe and north America, the latter being the most important twentieth century legatee and champion of European style modernization and modernity. Far reaching in its historical and philosophical implications, this book is a landmark in scholarly analyses that seek to de-center Europe.
Rochona Majumdar, Associate Professor, The University of Chicago, USA
'What is Europe?' ask Bo Strath and Peter Wagner in this elegant and finely-argued book. For a stubborn many, Europe is the birthplace of modernity, the avant-garde that anyone and any place wishing to be considered modern must follow. Strath and Wagner challenge this European self-praise. Working in English, French, German and Spanish, and drawing on their expertise in History, Sociology and Philosophy, Strath and Wagner not only provincialize Europe but do so in ways that respect the historical specificity of Europe. That is, they pay attention to the relative uniqueness of processes both internal and external to Europe, both good and bad, both ambiguous and contradictory. It remains to be seen how many of those who insist on the discredited idea of Europe as the sole parent of modernity will be moved by this excellent book to reconsider their prejudices. But, whatever they do, they cannot ignore the sophisticated argument offered here.
Jacob Dlamini, Assistant Professor of History, Princeton University, USA
The volume bundles extensive knowledge, especially of recent historiography, which sets itself apart from a Eurocentric perspective, and thus represents a good introduction to current research and its debates.
H-Soz-Kult (Bloomsbury Translation)
It is often taken for granted that modernity emerged in Europe and diffused from there across the world. This book questions that assumption and re-examines the question of European modernity in the light of world history.
Bo Stråth and Peter Wagner re-position Europe in the global context of the 19th and 20th
centuries. They show that Europe is less modern than has been assumed, and modernity less European and thus decentre Europe in a way that makes room for a wider historical perspective. Adopting a thematic structure, the authors reconceive the idea of European modernity in relation to key topics such as democracy, capitalism and market society, individual autonomy, religion and politics.
European Modernity is an important addition to the literature that will be of interest to all students and scholars of modern European history.
Part I. The Question of European Modernity
1. Introduction: Modernity – Europe – European Modernity
2. What is Europe?
Part II. Key Features of European Modernity Reconsidered
3. Europe’s Hesitation with Democracy
4. The Industrial and Market Revolution in Global Perspective: The Colonial Heritage and the
Social Question
5. European Religion: The Christians and the Others
6. The European: Atom – Individual – Person – Subject?
PART III Transformations of European Modernity
7. The Axial Age and Modern Europe
8. The Great Transformation: Organized Modernity for Welfare and Warfare, 1870s - 1960s
9. The New Great Transformation: The Global Challenge of Historical injustice and Movements
for Collective Self-determination: 1960s – The present
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
It is a global world. Nevertheless, Europe has left its mark – both positive and negative – on many aspects of its politics, its economy and its intellectual life. The series seeks to question some of the ways in which that legacy is commonly assessed by challenging the view of a single, independent, and coherent Europe acting on an equally homogenous outside world. What was ‘inside’ and what was ‘outside’ Europe was continually negotiated both in theory and in practice, and the “European heritage” was embedded in a continual stream of influences and contestations criss-crossing the continents. At the intersection of these multiple cross-currents this series explores what “Europe” may have meant for both insiders and outsiders at different moments of early modern and modern history.
The series is focused on Europe’s legacy in the modern world. For this purpose, it seeks to situate European history in a global context as well as in the internal dynamics of ideas, policies and powers that have proposed rival accounts of what “Europe” means or could mean. It seeks to present “Europe” as both global and local, deeply invested in imperial ventures and simultaneously imagining an identity for itself. The time-frame of the series is vast, covering moments from the renaissance to the 19th century and recognising that historical periodisation can itself implicate a story of Europe that may be contested. The purpose, however, is to evaluate these moments in terms of what they have meant for today’s world.
The series emphasizes the entanglements between the political, the legal, the religious and the economic and employs techniques and methodologies from intellectual history, the history of events, and structural history. The result is a collection of works that shed new light on the role that Europe’s history has played in the development of the modern world.
Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Bo Stråth is Emeritus Professor of Nordic, European and World History at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He also taught contemporary history at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.
Peter Wagner is Research Professor at the Catalan Institute for Advanced Studies and Research (ICREA) at the University of Barcelona, Spain.