Rethinking Modernity

Gurminder Bhambra presents a fundamental reconstruction of the idea of modernity in sociology, criticizing classic and contemporary contributions and arguing for an approach based on ‘connected histories’ beyond the Eurocentric focus of dominant approaches.

Arguing for the idea of connected histories, Gurminder Bhambra presents a fundamental reconstruction of the idea of modernity in contemporary sociology, where modernity’s origins are located in Europe. She criticizes the abstraction of European modernity from its colonial context and the way in which non-Western ‘others’ are regarded as having no contribution to make to understandings of modernity. It aims to establish a dialogue in which ‘others’ can speak, and also be heard.

GURMINDER K. BHAMBRA is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Keele, UK. She has undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of Sussex and the London School of Economics. She has been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex and a Research Associate at the Five College Women’s Studies Research Centre at Mount Holyoke College, USA, where she was also Visiting Professor in Critical Social Thought.

Acknowledgements * Introduction: Postcolonialism, Sociology, and the Politics of Knowledge Production * PART 1: SOCIOLOGY AND ITS HISTORIOGRAPHY * Modernity, Colonialism and the Postcolonial Critique * European Modernity and the Sociological Imagination * From Modernization to Multiple Modernities: Eurocentrism Redux * PART 2: DECONSTRUCTING EUROCENTRISM: CONNECTED HISTORIES * The Renaissance and Myths of European Cultural Integrity * The French Revolution and Myths of the Modern Nation-State * The Industrial Revolution and Myths of Industrial Capitalism * Conclusion: Sociology and Social Theory After Postcolonialism: Toward A Connected Historiography * References * Index