Modernism

Modernism is a set of ideas about individual and public life that emerged in 17th-century Europe and spread around the world, ideas that clashed with nonscientific traditions, religion, and superstition. Apart from representative events and periods that mark its onset and conclusion, there are no clear dates that define the period of modernism. As early as the Renaissance, which gave way to the Age of Enlightenment, premodern intellectualism was gaining momentum for the thrust toward technological, economic, cultural, and industrial revolutions that would bring advanced societies into the Age of Modernism. The sociologist Anthony Giddens (b. 1938) has described the emergence of the modern era as resulting from the development of the nation-state as well as the rise of industrialism. Within this notion of modernism ...