Modern world

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(Tagged August 2005)
See related article Modernity.

The concept Modern World is recognized by many historians as being the period of time commencing after the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, after the mid-18th century. Other terms, such as Modern Period, modern times, the Modern Age, or the Modern Era, are commonly used. Some historians also use the terms New World or the Progressive Age to denote the recent period of time in history.

Contents

Beginning and ending

The beginning of this period is marked by the end of the European Renaissance. Exact definition depends on the specific usage — for example a historian might be referring to the period 1650-, whilst a musician might be referring to music postdating the romantic era, which would date the beginning of modernity to around 1900.

The modern age may be defined to extend to the present day, or else to conclude postmodernism (which may be dated any time from the 1960s to the early 1980s), again depending on the usage. In the case where modern is used in a sense which means "before postmodernism", it may refer specifically to modernism. Another view is that postmodernism may, however, be considered as just the latest development of modernism itself.

Characteristics

The concept of the modern world as distinct from an ancient world of historical and outmoded artifacts rests on a sense that the modern world is primarily the product of relatively recent and revolutionary change. Advances in all areas of human activity -- politics, industry, society, economics, commerce, transport, communication, mechanization, automation, science, medicine, technology and culture -- appear to have transformed an "Old World" into the 'Modern or New World. In each case, the identification of a Revolutionary change can be used to demarcate the old and old-fashioned from the modern.

Politics

In European politics, the transition from feudal institutions to modern institutions has been marked by a series of Revolutions and military conflicts, beginning with the Eighty Years' War, which resulted in Dutch independence, confirmed in the Peace of Westphalia. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) established the modern international system of independent nation-states, ending feudalism in international relations. The English Glorious Revolution (1688) marked the end of feudalism in Great Britain, creating a modern constitutional monarchy. The French Revolution of 1789 overthrew the Ancien Régime in France, and as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, served to introduce political modernity in much of Western Europe.

The American and French Revolutions ended the role of absolute monarchies to do as they wished in the world. Henceforth the world would become a "Modern" place where Democracy, and Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity became the new standards of government and of the rules of society.

Men such as the Emperor Napoleon introduced new codes of law in Europe based on merit and achievement, rather than on a class system rooted in Feudalism. The modern political system of Liberalism (derived from the word "Liberty" which means "Freedom") empowered members of the dis-enfranchised Third Estate. The power of elected bodies swept aside traditional rule by royal decree. A new attachment to one's nation, culture and language produced the powerful forces of Nationalism. This in turn ultimately contributed to new ideologies such as the ideology of Fascism, Socialism and Communism.

Taken to an extreme, the desire to demolish all vestiges of the past and create a classless society, resulted in the abuses of Communism following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, which executed the Tsar and his family, created the Soviet Union, transformed serfdom, and forcibly modernized Mother Russia. In Germany, once the Kaiser had abdicated in 1918, chaos ensued, paving the way for the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

The new republic of the United States of America granted the vote to black, male citizens, and placed reins on government based on the new Constitution and created a system of checks and balances between the three different branches of government, the legislature, judiciary, and executive headed by a President who won a national election.

Science and technology

Revolutions in science and technology have been no less influential than political revolutions in changing the shape of the modern world. The Scientific revolution, beginning with the discoveries of Kepler and Galileo, and culminating with Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), changed the way educated people saw the natural world.

Inventions

The mechanical and scientific inventions that were discovered, studied and implemented changed the way goods were produced and marketed. For example, modern machines in Britain speeded up the manufacture of commodities such as cloth and iron. The horse and ox were no longer needed as beasts of burden. The newly invented engine powered the car, train, ship, and eventually the plane, thus revolutionizing the way people traveled. Artificially created energy powered any motor that drove any machine that was invented. Raw goods could be transported in huge quantities over vast distances and manufactured quickly and then marketed all over the world, making Britain into a very wealthy country.

Progress continued as Science saw so many new scientific discoveries. The telephone, radio, X-rays, microscopes, electricity all contributed to rapid changes in life-styles and societies. Discoveries of antibiotics such as penicillin brought new ways of combating diseases. Surgery and drugs kept on making progressive improvements in medical care, hospitals, and nursing. New theories such as Evolution and Psychoanalysis changed humanity's "old fashioned" views of itself.

Industry

An Industrial Revolution initiated by mechanical automation of the manufacture of cotton cloth and the use of steam engines, commenced in the 18th century in Great Britain, followed in the 19th century by a later series of developments, which saw modern systems of communication and transportation introduced in the form of steamships, railroads and the telegraph. In the late 19th century, a Second Industrial Revolution, prompted by developments in the chemical, petroleum, steel and electrical industries, furthered transformed the modern world.

Warfare

Warfare was changed with the advent of new varieties of rifle, cannon, gun, machine gun, armor, tank, plane, jet, and missile. And weapons such as the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb, known along with chemical weapons and biological weapons as weapons of mass destruction actually made the devastation of the entire planet Earth possible in minutes. All these are among the markings of the Modern World.

Culture

New attitudes towards religion, with the church diminished, and a desire for personal freedoms, induced desires for sexual freedoms, which were ultimately accepted by large sectors of the Western World. Theories of "free love" and uninhibited sex were touted by radicals in the 1960s.

Equality of the sexes in politics and economics, women's liberation movement, gay rights for homosexuals and the freedom afforded by contraception allowed for greater personal choices in these intimate areas of personal life.

The Arts

The Modern Age, when used in reference to the arts, is the period from around the beginning of the 20th century, up to the present day. While some art may be described as post-modern, in reality this is just a continuation of the characteristics of modern art. Modern art is typified by self-awareness, and by the manipulation of form or medium as an integral part of the work itself. Whereas pre-modern art merely sought to represent a form of reality, modern art tends to encourage the audience to question its perceptions, and thereby the fundamental nature, of art itself. Key movements in modern art include cubist painting, typified by Pablo Picasso, modernist literature such as that written by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein, and the 'new poetry' headed by Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot.

Famous people

Much of the Modern world replaced the Biblically-oriented value system, the monarchical government system, and the feudal economic system, with new democratic and liberal ideas in the areas of politics, science, psychology, sociology, and economics. These new ideas were derived from the writings of such people as:

(Note: The list below is not comprehensive by any means. To name all the thinkers and personalities who helped shape the modern age would be a voluminous undertaking. This selection is meant as a profile of the way major thinkers contributed to the creation of the world as we know it today. They are listed chronologically by year of birth.)

15th century and 16th century

17th century

18th century

19th century

20th century

Partisan use of the term Worldwide

The phrase "Worldwide" has tremendous emotional appeal, and is used in various countries not only by persons from professional historians to self-taught curmudgeons but by political groups which want to impose their view of reality upon their countrymen and even the whole world. The easiest way to do this is to establish a benchmark year and leave the particulars to specialists.

Britain: The Glorious Revolution of 1689 established a king selected by parliament, ending the troubles in that country in the seventeenth century. This was primarily done by the faction called the Whigs, who used the term "modern" for generations thereafter to gain credit. Later generations and political parties did not consider this a sufficient change to merit the term.

France: Although the French still glory in the magnificence of King Louis XIV, the end of his reign in 1715 is considered by them as a handy spot from which to tout the next phase of French glory, the Enlightenment, which they call « l'Age des lumières ». In other words, what happened in Britain does not concern them. After the French Revolution of 1789, they declared that the modern age had been surpassed by the contemporary age.

Russia: It took some time for the European socialists to conceive that the next great revolution would start someplace other than in France. But the Russians have always compared themselves to the French. After the October revolution, the Communist party of the Soviet Union declared that the "modern age" began with Peter the Great and the "contemporary age" began with this Bolshevik revolution.

Other countries do not use the terms the same as the French and Russians, especially if their languages are non-Indo-European. The Japanese call the dynasties previous to the Tokugawa dynasty as medieval, and the Meiji Restoration of 1858 is considered equivalent to the French Revolution of 1789, but haven't assimilated a form of the word modern for Tokugawa. As for the Third World, the obvious benchmarks are colonization by European imperial powers and the subsequent decolonization in the twentieth century. But "modern" and "contemporary" are not used for this purpose.

The United States of America: A seemingly natural dividing point as far as Spain and the new world are concerned is the voyage of Columbus in 1492. But the need for such an undertaking was underscored by the taking of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire of the Turks in 1453, so historians once took this as their benchmark. Many contemporary historians, however, use a less-specific date, such as 1500, to avoid reference to a specific event that was not as important everywhere in the world.

See also

cs:Novověk da:Nyere tid (historisk periode) de:Neuzeit es:Edad Moderna fr:Époque moderne he:העת החדשה hu:Újkor ja:近代 nds:Nutied sl:Novi vek zh:現代

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