The Dictionary of Human Geography

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Berman so admires. In a transposed key,

Olsson’s (2007) critique of cartographic

reasonrecalls those earlier modernisms too,

and stages crucial encounters with the art of

Duchamp, Malevich and Rothko; but its care-

ful minimalism also reinscribes the pathos of

high modernism in a newly critical register.

Taken together, these thought-works show

that modernism still has much to contribute

to the jaded critical cultures of human geog-

raphy (and much more besides). dg

Suggested reading

Brooker and Thacker (2005); Harvey (1989a,

chs. 2, 16).

modernity A notoriously ambivalent and

highly contested concept, the notion of ‘mod-

ernity’ has nonetheless acquired wide currency

within human geography, not the least

prompted by the proliferation of ideas drawn

frompostmodernismin the 1980s and 1990s.

Broadly speaking, the term has been used to

designate a number of discrete, yet inter-

related, phenomena that, in most cases until

recently, placeeuropeat the centre of the

world stage (seeeurocentrism):

(1) First and foremost, modernity is used as

a means to periodize European (and, by

implication, ‘world’) history by designat-

ing a distinct epoch. The boundaries

surrounding this ‘modern’ epoch are un-

clear, starting as early as the dawn of the

Italian Renaissance (fourteenth century),

through the invention of the printing

press (fifteenth century) to theindus-

trial revolution(eighteenth and nine-

teenth centuries). As Bauman (1993,

p. 3) put it: ‘‘‘How old is modernity?’’

is a contentious question ... There is no

agreement on dating. There is no con-

sensus on what is to be dated.’ Common

to all epochal definitions, however, is the

idea of a break with the past: with estab-

lished modes of representation, for

example, with economic practices and

regimes, with technologies, or with

cultural and social relations.

(2) Modernity is also used to designate a

particular mental attitude that seeks

rationally to understand the world we

live in by finding order within and achiev-

ing domination overnature(cf. Withers,

1996). Here, ‘modernity’ becomes syn-

onymous with the notion of progress and

gradually affects most areas of life, from

the medicalization of bodies and environ-

ments to the rationalization of urban life

through the discourse ofplanning(see

alsobiopower).scienceand the pur-

suit of knowledge in the wake of the

Europeanenlightenmentwas central

to this evidence-based spirit of modern-

ity, which finds its perfect geographical

expression in the notion of Cartesian, iso-

tropicspace. Aspirationally, it is perhaps

best captured by Kant’s famous 1784

maxim,sapere aude, or ‘dare to know’.

(3) A third dimension employs ‘modernity’

to designate a thoroughly secular project

of liberation and emancipation that argu-

ably culminated in the related American

and French Revolutions of the late eight-

eenth century, and which led to the

emancipation of slaves and the establish-

ment ofhuman rightsacross a range

of differences. This ‘political’ modernity

heralds a set of historical tasks that seeks

the implementation of novel forms of

political representation, of legal and

social rights of individuals, and of justice

in a host of different contexts (cf.

Schama, 1989; Howell, 1993; Delaney,

2001: see alsoliberalism).

(4) A final sense in which the concept of

‘modernity’ is used specifies a particular

process of global incorporation that leads

directly from the Age of Exploration to

the Europeancolonialismsof the nine-

teenth and twentieth centuries. In this

context, 1492 marks the dawn of a new

era: the beginning of globalization

within and through a set of clearly struc-

tured, if historically developing,core–

peripheryrelationships (Taylor, 1999)

and motivated, perhaps, by what Max

Weber famously described as a ‘protest-

ant work ethic’. The most basic element

to this notion of modernity is thenation-

stateand its territorially expanding cap-

acity to organize and make social proc-

esses anonymous (see also Harris, 1991).

Thus, it would seem best initially to concep-

tualise‘modernity’asa broad semantic field

marked by tensions, contradictions and pos-

sibledialecticalenergies, rather than stream-

lining them into an organic totality. The

concept is thus implicitly linked to other

concepts such ascapitalism, ‘nation-state,’

mobility, literacy,democracyandurbaniza-

tion, to name but the most prominent. Any

one of these, individually or in combination,

are customarily invoked when attempting to

define ‘modernity,’ so much so that often the

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MODERNITY