Modernity and Progress

This article examines the use of the term "modern" as an indicator of "modernity," the human condition of being modern. The modern era is a term widely used in the Western world to indicate a historical period in Western civilization that followed upon the medieval era, also referred to as the Middle Ages. Scholars, and others, make reference to modern art, literature, architecture, science, and technology. The term itself, taken at face value, masks the numerous, compound concepts used to describe, examine, and explain human interactions and interrelations. The very ideal of progress is positioned as underlying the definition of modernity. Ideas in four fundamental spheres of modern social organization are briefly unpacked and related to the idea of modern progress: rationality, capitalism, industrialization, and political governance. The quantity and quality of modern progress are valid topics of inquiry in sociology and other social sciences. This questioning of modern progress is reflected in the theories of postmodernity, which are briefly explained. If the promise of modernity, the improvement of the lot of humankind, is a myth, sociology seeks to expose it as such or, at the very least, to measure how far we are from realizing an "ideal type" of modern progress.

Keywords Bureaucracy; Capitalism; Consumption; Consumerism; Dialectic; Economic Goods; Economic Labor; Economic Services; Ideal Type; Ideology; Industrialization; Modernity; Modernization Project; Postmodernity; Production; Rights; Socialism; Technology

Modernity & Progress

Overview

The modern era is a term widely used in the Western world to indicate a historical period in Western civilization that followed upon the medieval era, also referred to as the Middle Ages. Scholars, and others, make reference to modern art, literature, architecture, science, and technology. There is no single date upon which scholars agree as marking the beginning of modernity, the state of being modern. There is even wider disagreement as to whether or not the modern era has ended or is ending. However, many place the beginning of the modern era sometime in the sixteenth century, often around mid-century (Wallerstein, 1995).

What does it mean to be modern? This is a central question to which there is no single answer. Rather, to use a medical metaphor, modernity is a syndrome that can be described through differing combinations of any number of social and cultural symptoms. Switching metaphors, whenever we attempt to "wrap-up" large swaths of human history into tight bundles of thought, there are always loose ends.

Thus, there is no one statement that sums up the idea of being modern. Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein, however, offers a historical comparative perspective on the meaning of the term modern:

Some 50 years ago, "modern" had two clear connotations. One was positive and forward-looking…. The term was situated in a conceptual framework of the presumed endlessness of technological progress, and therefore of constant innovation…. [There was] …a second major connotation to the concept of modern, one that was more oppositional than affirmative. To be modern signified to be anti-medieval, in an antinomy in which the concept "medieval" incarnated narrow-mindedness, dogmatism, and above all constraints on authority…. But it was not a triumph of humanity over nature; it was rather a triumph of humanity over itself (1995, p. 472).

This duality of meaning is a recurring theme in descriptions of the modern era and a mark of modern dialectical thought. There is, as Wallerstein suggests, an ideological underpinning to the depiction of modernity as a "triumph" of humanity, an amelioration of the human condition. Is it, he asks, a triumph in humankind's struggle against the elements or against each other for survival? The ideal of progress toward this goal of human "triumph" lies at the very heart of the modern. Some have called progress a "central legitimating myth of western societies" (Morgan, 2006, p. 228).

Sociology, the systematic study of the social, was born in and of the modern era. Sociology is none other than the quest of humankind to apply modern thinking to better understand how humans interact, interrelate, and construct the social world. If the promise of modernity, the improvement of the lot of humankind, is a myth, sociologists seek to expose it as such or, at the very least, to measure how far we are from realizing the an ideal type of modern progress.

The Ideology of Progress

Wallerstein is not alone in proposing that the ideal of progress forms the very root of the definition of what is modern (Becker, 1968; Wagner, 1992; Ashley, 1990; Latour, 1993; Kellner, 1999; Rappa, 2002; Sang-Woo, 2008). By definition, society has progressed, or endured, through historical time. Yet, it is the ideological sense of the word progress, which implies change toward some end or purpose—in this case, other than subsistence-level survival—that prompts the most interesting questions and demands a deep probing of the sociocultural past and present—not to mention ideas for the future—of humankind. Sociological inquiry tends to ask, "Progress toward what, for whom?"

Rationality & Progress in Social Thought

As we look back over time at the history of human philosophical thought, we find definite patterns in the course of human ideas. Recorded human history itself gives evidence that humankind has become less preoccupied with the reactive tasks of day-to-day, hand-to-mouth survival and more concerned with planning and reasoning about how to ensure survival and best provide for human necessities and, increasingly, conveniences. The period in time at which this tactic of planning and reasoning becomes a dominant method to meet the challenges of human survival and flourishing marks, for many, the beginning of the modern era. The idea of "active" human progress guided by reason became a kind of new philosophical law driving human affairs (Becker, 1968; Wallerstein, 1995). The characterization of the modern era is rooted in Western society's widespread adoption of this concept of social progress as arising from advances in human knowledge and reason. The very term reason implies a goal or vision toward which we progress. These aspirations for improvement of the lot of humankind and the application of planning and reasoning toward that end became the modernization project (Featherstone, 1988; 1989).

Many, if not all, of the founders of the field of inquiry that came to be known as sociology take the examination of this movement toward rational planning and reasoning as the main focus of their inquiries into the social. Auguste Comte, Max Weber, Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, Ferdinand T&otildennies, and Georg Simmel, to name a few, can certainly be read in this light (Mitchell, 1968). Each elaborate and compare the stages in human history which they see as critical in this turn of human events toward the modern. Their ultimate concern is the direction in which these events seem to be leading the everyday lives of humans and the organization of human affairs. Though each comes to slightly different conclusions, they share in common the desire to understand human society through systematic, measured examination and critique of the arrangement of human social relationships.

Modern Progress & Capitalism

While other economic schemas have contributed to modernity, most notably socialism, one of the striking features of modernity has been the rapid growth of capitalistic economic markets to intermediate the economic exchange of labor, goods, and services. Historically, the critical mass of growth in capitalistic economies is seen in Western societies and culture in the last two centuries. Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s, however, capitalism has been adopted and adapted by Eastern nations and states, including Asia and the Middle East (Wallerstein, 1995; Fotopoulos, 2001; Moaddel, 2001; Morgan, 2006; Sang-Woo, 2008).

Social science literature abounds with detailed, sometimes contradictory, descriptions of historical stages of growth of capitalistic markets. Most contemporary social thinkers agree, however, that the forms of capitalism predominating today have been strongly influenced by socialist thought and are, in fact, hybridized economic systems exhibiting features of both socialism and capitalism. The forms of capitalism we see today are sometimes called late-stage capitalism. The history of capitalism is long and quite convoluted, thus, not easily characterized. However, among the economic characteristics typically associated with late-stage capitalism are hyperactive trading in both stock and commodity markets, rampant consumerism, and unprecedented monopolistic capital accumulation. Capitalism is seen as a major feature of modernity (Fotopoulos, 2001).

The market economy and concomitant capital accumulation, stockpiling economic profit and lending money at rates of interest fees to make further profit, are markers of modern economic systems. There is some accuracy to Fotopoulos' claim that, in the ideology of late-stage capitalism, the ideal of growth, particularly the growth of capital, has become synonymous with progress (2001). Capital accumulation has allowed and spurred industrialization. Yet, there are limits to the growth of markets, the numbers of consumers who buy specific types of goods and services, such that this may limit the growth of capital accumulation. In any case, though, there are valid issues to consider if we measure progress only in terms of monetary value (Williams & Sewpaul, 2004).

Industrialization & Technological Progress

Humankind is not the only tool-user found on our planet, but the extent and intricacy of the tools used to provide for human necessities and conveniences is unequaled among other species. The use of tools to meet human needs has been essential in shaping the patterns of human interaction and interrelation, which have dominated human culture and society for most of recorded history. Relatively simple tools allowed humankind to develop the techniques of agricultural cultivation of crops around which relatively large, pre-modern social collectives were formed.

Planning for the use of tools led us toward standardization of techniques for producing goods and services to meet human needs and wants. This standardization is seen, historically, as perhaps the single most important human idea affecting the production of economic goods and services and the effect of those organizing processes on human interactions and interrelations (Noble, 1984). Seen by many industrialists as an essential component of the modernization project—Henry Ford comes to mind as an example—standardization of production laid the foundation for the spread and development of industrial manufacturing. Machines as tools for large-scale production of human necessities and conveniences played no small part in the escalation of exponential population growth, another important factor in the organization of human social relationships.

An essential issue arising from the sociological study of technology in the conduct and arrangement of human relationships is the extent to which technology does, and should, determine social organization. It is difficult, if not impossible, to argue that the pattern of social interactions and interrelations we see today would exist in the absence of the present pattern of technological solutions to the planning and provisioning of human wants and needs.

At times, in examining the part industrialization has played in shaping human affairs, it seems as if machines determine our present and future social order. Yet, it is clear that the ends toward which we employ technological tools are the imperative factors in shaping human relationships. Without human needs, wants, and desires, technology would consist merely of vast archives of plans and blueprints.

On the scale we have seen in the last two centuries, the rate of production and consumption of economic goods and services would be impossible without the human capacity for cooperation and coordination. Yet, we would be foolish and somewhat shortsighted if we looked only at the cooperative aspects of industrial production. The potential for domination, conflict, and disagreement are also inherent in industrial production and accompanying bureaucratic organization of human interactions and interrelations. The history of the modern era is rife with examples, not the least of which is the rise of workers' unions in the last century to negotiate worker compensation for rationally organized work.

Conflict, of course, is not new nor peculiar to modern culture and society. Certainly, human history is rife with accounts of human discord and disagreement. However, the theory that the quantity and quality of social conflict is affected greatly by the quantity and quality of our interrelations in the rational organization of social life has evident support since at least the time of Max Weber (Mitchell, 1968; Tickamyer, 2004). While the variety and number of goods and services made available through industrial production has provided nicely for the needs, wants, and desires of large segments of our global population, extending life-spans and providing luxurious comfort for some, by far the largest proportion of humans still eke-out their daily existence under conditions that many would think unbearable (Wallerstein, 1995; Ashely, 1990).

It would be quite easy (though also quite erroneous) to dismiss the lack of progress that technology-based production has made in fulfilling even the most basic needs of humans on a worldwide scale as simply due to the ignorance, laziness, or cultural intransigence of indigenous populations in some parts of the world, or even of those inhabitants still enmeshed in crushing poverty in industrialized nations. It is much more difficult to overlook the harried, hectic—some would say sickening—pace of life experienced by those who have fully embraced modernity (Bracken, 2001; Brysona, et al., 2007). Industrial progress does not bring the life of ease that some might imagine, though such modern problems are of a different order, altogether, than ones encountered by those who seek to survive in the constant presence of food and water shortages, endemic disease, and daily violence.

Modern Progress & Human Interrelationships

More important than humankind's relationship with the machines of industrial production are human relationships with other humans, and the implications of modernity to those relationships. The form, manner, and number of human interactions are of particular interest to those who attempt to understand how and why society changes over time. These were the primary focus of those founding sociological theorists already mentioned, and continue to be focal for contemporary sociologists. Thus, Wallerstein questions the extent to which even partial fulfillment of the promise of modernity to meet human needs for survival has reduced human conflict and induced a more equitable distribution of rights to the benefits of technological production.

There is little argument that human interrelationships in modernity are, on orders of magnitude, more complex than during pre-modern eras. The forms of political systems, the means by which social power is gained and maintained, that we see in contemporary times are another marker of the modern era. Political systems have been shaped, in large part, by the ideology of progress and the economic and technical processes of the modern era. Through these political systems, policies of governance dictate and regulate the rights of individuals and shape the interactions and interrelations of both individuals and social collectives.

Elaborate systems of laws, governance, politics, and economics have developed to allocate the rights of individuals in their increasingly numerous and complicated relationships with social collectives (Fotoplouos, 2001; Morgan, 2006). On some fronts, we have seen great strides during the modern era in efforts to call attention to the very notion of human rights. Implementation, however, is quite another matter. Of the nations of today, even those founded on the cornerstone of inalienable rights have sometimes floundered in the execution of the modernization project, especially in their international dealings with non-Western cultures.

Further Insights

Beyond Modern Ideology

It is almost impossible, today, to write about modernity without mentioning postmodernity, although this line of thinking is another topic in its own right. The term postmodern is first seen in connection with architecture, literature, and the arts. These aspects of social life are the bearers of culture, the symbolic, signifying, semiotic expressions of social life. Seminal discussion of postmodernity arose in these fields, bringing forth claims that the symbolic expression of contemporary social life had changed on a qualitative scale and, thus, marked the rise of a new cultural era. From these fields of thought, discussions of postmodernity spread to other fields of thought.

Sociological theories of a postmodern era are based in critique or, often, outright rejection of modernity. The critics of modernism range from those who cite the many failures of modern thought, as expressed in scientific research, economies, bureaucratic organization, and technology, to fulfill the promise of improvement in the human condition to those who those who reject the very idea of a modern era altogether. One common criticism is that modernism is utopian and, therefore, the modernization project is unattainable and irrelevant. Yet others reject modernistic ideology as a continuation of tyranny, domination, and subjection of the many by the few, simply under the new label of modernity (Mirchandani, 2005).

Many counter or reject postmodern thought on a variety of points. The most frequent claim is that the aspects of social life that some call postmodern are none other than the cultural pattern of modernism that accompanies late-stage capitalism (Wallerstein 1995; Kellner, 1999; Fotopoulos, 2001; Morgan, 2006).

The debate between modernists and postmodernists is furious in its pace, producing mounds of literature growing daily. Many names are associated with the rise of postmodern thinking, some of the most influential include Jean Baudrillard, Zygmunt Bauman, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, and Richard Rorty (Ashley, 1990; Mirchandani, 2005). This is by no means an exhaustive list but, for those interested, it provides a basis for further background research.

In the midst of this raucous debate, there are a few social thinkers quietly examining both sides of the issue and working toward synthesis. Some do not pay explicit homage to the debate itself, but nonetheless contribute substantively to social thought that may truly move us beyond the modern-postmodern dichotomy. Important approaches to synthesis concentrate on more closely examining, further defining, and detailing the complex linkages between compound concepts such as culture and society, local and global, order and chaos, human and non-human (Lee, 1997). Such approaches help to refine ideas about what constitutes progress and how we should evaluate progress (for further discussion and examples of such approaches, see Williams & Sewpaul, 2004; Goldfarb, 2005; Mirchandani, 2005; Morgan, 2006).

Conclusion

The social sciences use various indicators of the processes of social life to mark differing eras in the history of humankind. These indicators are grouped together under labels that stand as place markers in the pursuit of understanding the present in terms of the past. Modern is one such label. However, accepting such labels at "face value," without unpacking the compound ideas contained therein, adds little to our understanding of human affairs.

Progress toward improving the human condition, the ability of humankind to survive and thrive, is poised as the overarching ideology driving human interactions and interrelations over the last several centuries, a historical era labeled modern. The quantity and quality of such progress continue to be valid and pertinent grounds for sociological investigation and, in fact, are at the very root of the founding of sociology as a field of inquiry.

Some may fear that, if the answers to such questions are concluded in the negative, the task of sociological inquiry will have been completed and sociology itself will cease to be relevant. Yet, the end of the modern era, if and when it arrives, does not mark the end of social life nor the end of human strife. If the promise of modernity, the ideal of improving the life circumstances of each and every individual, remains unfulfilled, will humanity abandon hope altogether?

This prospect seems unlikely and, moreover, disheartening. More likely, sociology, as well as other social and physical sciences, will continue the pursuit of understanding not only the interactions and interrelations of humans, but the relations of humans to the realms of the non-human: humankind's place in the universe. We will continue to do so using the theories, methods, and languages of the past, but informed by the successes and, even more importantly, the failures of the past. No doubt, this will engender new theories, methods, and languages. Nevertheless, the truth remains, regardless of the symbols and representations we might use to understand, explain, and express the human experience, these are mere reflections of human life, not the content of life itself.

Terms & Concepts

Bureaucracy: The organization of work by division into bureaus, offices, or departments based on specific functions and hierarchic authority.

Capitalism: An economic system in which the means of production and distribution of goods and services are privately owned and operated for the benefit of the owner(s).

Consumption: The purchase and use of economic goods and services.

Consumerism: Consumption of economic goods and services as a lifestyle driven largely by advertising and media directed toward inducing a socio-psychological desire for specific goods and services, regardless of consumer need.

Dialectic: An approach to theory formation that makes use of two seemingly opposite concepts (thesis, antithesis) to form a continuum (synthesis) of ideas.

Economic Goods: Tangible items produced for consumption.

Economic Labor: Work performed for monetary payment rather than for a share in the profit.

Economic Services: Intangible work performed on behalf of a consumer.

Ideal Type: Theoretical construct consisting of a hypothetical set of characteristics or attributes.

Ideology: A set of ideas and ideals, often used in discussing political issues.

Industrialization: Processes associated with the rise and growth of factory-systems of economic productivity.

Modernity: An era in social history characterized by growth in bureaucratic work organization, technological industrial production, market capitalism, and consumerism in rational pursuit of the ideological end of social progress.

Modernization Project: The overall set of processes, organizations, enterprises, and accompanying sociocultural roles and interactions in rational pursuit of the ideological end of social progress and the growth and spread of such progress to a global scale.

Postmodernity: The condition of being postmodern; postmodern social thought is based in the critique or outright rejection of modernity, often used to indicate social processes associated with the increasing growth of non-factory (postindustrial) systems of economic productivity.

Production: The processes and means associated with creating economic goods and services.

Rights: Just and fair claims to anything that belongs to individuals by dent of nature, law, or tradition.

Socialism: An economic system in which the means of production and distribution of goods and services are publicly owned (usually, held and operated by a unit of governance) for the benefit of a specific social collective.

Technology: A specialized body of knowledge concerning human ideas about the use of available resources to accomplish specific productive ends.

Bibliography

Achinger, C. (2012). Threats to modernity, threats of modernity. European Societies, 14 , 240–258. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=75253632&site=ehost-live

Alexander, J. C. (2011). Dangerous frictions: The condition of modernity and its possible repair. Fudan Journal of the Humanities & Social Sciences, 4 , 1–11. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=70127657&site=ehost-live

Ashley, D. (1990, January). Post modernism and the "end of the individual": From repressive self-mastery to ecstatic communication. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 10, 195–221.

Baptista, I. (2012). How Portugal became an "unplanned country": A critique of scholarship on Portuguese urban development and planning. International Journal of Urban & Regional Research, 36 , 1076–1092. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=79370902&site=ehost-live

Becker, E. (1968). The structure of evil: an essay on the unification of the science of man. New York, NY: The Free Press.

Bracken, P. (2001). Post-modernity and post-traumatic stress disorder. Social Science & Medicine, 53 , 733–743.

Bruno L. (1993). We have never been modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Brysona, L., et al. (2007). Managing the work-life roller-coaster: Private stress or public health issue? Social Science & Medicine, 65 , 1142–1153.

Featherstone, M. (1988). In pursuit of the postmodern: An introduction. Theory, Culture and Society 5, 195–215.

Fernandes, D. (2012). Modernity and the linguistic genocide of Kurds in Turkey. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2012 , 75–98. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=82751739&site=ehost-live

Fotopoulos, T. (2007). The myth of postmodern theory. Democracy & Nature, 7 , 27–75. Retrieved August 18, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with FullText. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=4742772&site=ehost-live

Goldfarb, J. (2005). Dialogue, culture, critique: the sociology of culture and the new sociological imagination. International Journal of Politics, Culture & Society 18 (3/4), 281–292. Retrieved August 18, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with FullText: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=23444652&site=ehost-live

Kellner, D. (1999). Theorizing the present moment: Debates between modern and postmodern theory. Theory & Society, 28 , 639. Retrieved August 11, 2008, from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with FullText: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=10707213&site=ehost-live

Lichtblau, K. (1995). Sociology and the diagnosis of the times or: The reflexivity of modernity. Theory, Culture & Society, 12 , 25–52.

Mirchandani, R. (2005). Postmodernism and sociology: From the epistemological to the empirical. Sociological Theory, 23 , 86–111. Retrieved August 18, 2008, from EBSCO database SocINDEX with Full Text: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=16073399&site=ehost-live

Mitchell, G. (1968). A hundred years of sociology: A concise history of the major figures, ideas, and schools of sociological thought (USA edition). Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company.

Morgan, G. (2006). Gray's elegy for progress. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 9 , 227–241. Retrieved August 11, 2008 from EBSCO online

database SocINDEX with FullText: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=20617490&site=ehost-live

Moaddel, M. (2002). The study of Islamic culture and politics: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 28 , 359–386. Retrieved August 11, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=6969507&site=ehost-live

Lee, M. (1997). From enlightenment to chaos: Toward non-modern social theory. In Eve, R., Horsfall, S., & Lee, M. (eds.) Chaos, Complexity, and Sociology: Myths, Models, and Theories. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Nobel, D. (1984). Forces of production: A social history of industrial automation. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.

Rappa, A. (2002). Modernity and the politics of public space: An introduction. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Sciences, 15 , 5–10. Retrieved August 11, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with FullText: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=6446341&site=ehost-live

Sang-Woo, K. (2008). Modernity, postmodernity, and Confucianism. Acta Koreana, 11 , 65–85. Retrieved August 11, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with FullText: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=33161221&site=ehost-live

Towards a sociology of postmodern culture. (1989). In Hans Haferkamp (ed.), Social Structure and Culture. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Wagner, P. (1992). Liberty and discipline: Making sense of postmodernity, or, once again, toward a sociohistorical understanding of modernity. Theory & Society, 21 , 467–492. Retrieved August 11, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with FullText: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=21572258&site=ehost-live

Wallerstein, I. (1995). The end to what modernity? Theory & Society, 24 , 471–488. Retrieved August 11, 2008 from EBSCO database SocINDEX with FullText: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=9512010823&site=ehost-live

Williams, L. & Sewpaul, V. (2004). Modernism, postmodernism and global standards setting. Social Work Education, 23 , 555–565. Retrieved August 18, 2008 from EBSCO database SocINDEX with FullText: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=14352476&site=ehost-live

Suggested Reading

Adams, J. Clemens, E., & Orloff, A. (2005). Remaking modernity: Politics, history, and sociology. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Beck, U., Giddens, A., & Lash, S. (1994). Reflexive modernization: Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order (1st edition). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Beck, U., & Sznaider, N. (2011). Self-limitation of modernity? The theory of reflexive taboos. Theory & Society, 40 , 417–436. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=61930158&site=ehost-live

Gray, J. (2004) Progress and other heresies. London, GB: Granta Books.

Jenks, C. (ed.) (1998). Core sociological dichotomies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Lenski, G., Lenski, J. & Nolan, P. (1991). Human societies: An introduction to macrosociology. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Ritzer, G. (2011). Sociological theory. 8th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.