The Riddle of the Modern World: Of Liberty, Wealth and Equality

Description

In "The Riddle of the Modern World," Alan Macfarlane "seeks to find the sources of English exceptionalism that ushered in the modern world, looking through the eyes of a number of witnesses from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries who have thought about these sources in a comparative framework. The first of these authors is Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755), who lived around the time England was breaking away from the European herd and establishing the institutions that would bring about the Industrial Revolution. The next is Adam Smith (1723-90), who lived just at the cusp of the changeover from an agrarian economy to an industrial mineral-energy-using economy. The third is Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59), who lived when modernity had become manifest both in England and in its offshoot, the United States of America. The fourth is the contemporary sociologist and anthropologist Ernest Gellner (1920-95)." "This strategy is an interesting one, and Macfarlane's thumbnail sketches of the lives and though of these thinkers are cogent and concise. I learned a great deal from his discussion of Montesquieu, and I am sure that readers who do not know the writings of the other thinkers discussed in the book will likewise find much of interest in it." -From "The Independent Review," Fall 2002