Michael David‑Fox, Crossing Borders, Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union
Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: A simple question demands a complicated answer: What about Soviet modernity?Even without its geographical restrictions the term created a lot of confusion on the basis of countless concepts among all sorts of academic disciplines.A tired out student of science studies already in 1991 moaned, the number of its meanings corresponds to the number of thinkers and journalists writing about it.1 The problem became more complicated when "modernity" was applied to the Soviet "case" where processes of modernization like industrialization, urbanization, literacy and others seemingly did not coincide with the existence of a cultural modernity, to use the conceptual differentiation of sociologists and philosophers.David-Fox's book offers a distinct answer by relying on Shmuel Eisenstadt's concept of multiple modernities, thus not only doubtlessly placing the Soviet Union under the umbrella of modernity but also locating the author's theoretical and methodological position in a wide range of conceptual options. 2The answers to the question are given in seven chapters of which five re-appear as more or less revised articles, or certain sections have been published before.The composition of the book is conceptually funnel shaped: the chapters get more and more focused as to time span and topic, and the "red file" of modernity-discussion frays after
Source: Cahiers du monde russe
Author: Stefan Plaggenborg
Institution: Ruhr University Bochum
Language: English
Topic: Soviet and Russian History
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2301325046