Word: modernism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...years ago, I read a terrific collection of essays - It Must be Beautiful - on the great scientific equations of modern times. I loved it, but as I meandered through the book, I was struck by an unexpected poignancy. The first essays, by and large, described breakthroughs that had taken place in the laboratories of Europe. The second half was quite different. Some time in the 1920s, the balance of scientific discovery shifted inexorably to the U.S. A small book of essays held within it proof of a profound historical change...
...governance, Jacques argues, are not those of the Western world; its values (let us say harmony and stability, rather than liberty and justice) are not those of the West. The roles of both the state and the extended family as social mechanisms in China differ from those in modern Western societies. All of this, Jacques argues, means that the 21st century will be one of "contested modernities." Until around 1970, he says, modernity was, with the exception of Japan, "an exclusively Western phenomenon." But as China assumes a bigger role in global economics and politics, that is changing. (See pictures...
...agree with much of this. We have learned in the last 20 years that there are many ways of being modern, and that Western liberal democracy is but one of them. But that little collection of essays on the great equations reminds us that a society's characteristics today will not necessarily shape what it will look like tomorrow. History rarely runs in straight and predictable lines. At the end of the 19th century, Germany - or perhaps more accurately, Germanic central Europe - was a technological and scientific powerhouse, its universities nurturing geniuses like Einstein, Heisenberg and Schrödinger, whose...
...This is particularly apposite in the case of China, a country with not only many possible futures, but (as it were) many pasts. There is a crude but commonly held thumbnail sketch of modern Chinese history that goes something like this: Two centuries ago, European powers tried to open a hermetic society to trade; they failed until the Opium Wars forced the issue; China then entered an era of foreign domination and internal chaos, which ended with the imposition of political stability by the Communist Party in 1949; in 1978, after another round of internal unrest, China chose to modernize...
...very different Walmart; in fact, it's not a Walmart at all. It is called Best Price Modern Wholesale, in collaboration with Walmart's Indian partner Bharti Enterprises, in order to get around the country's rigid foreign-investment restrictions. Members of the store have to be in business in order to do transactions in wholesale, but their families get cards that allow them to buy at retail prices. All sales are in cash. (Read how Walmart overcame India's tough business restrictions...