Talk:Modern Times (history)

Leisure Age
Leisure Age? Sounds intriguing. Somebody should write a page about it --BOARshevik 11:50 September 21, 2003 (UTC)

Earth-shattering
"Earth-shattering changes have occured"? That doesn't sound right. I don't think earth-shattering is an adjective. --64.166.211.212

People
Do Speilberg and Lucas really belong on the same list as Galileo and Einstein? xyzzyva

Hi xyz: Yes they do, in these modern times of mass media and mass (popular entertainment) through the movies and TV,as defining the way modern people are entertained and the "heros" they "choose" from "Star Wars" to "ET" IZAK 06:16, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

After Middle Ages; early modern, contemporary
Am I wrong, or doesn't the Modern World start with the end of the Middle Ages (around 1500)? You then divide it into the early modern world (until roughly, the French Revolution) and the contemporary world (afterwards). David.Monniaux 06:41, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC) Am i wrong, or shouldn't the modern world start when the ancient world finishes? 476 AD at the fall of the roman empire? you can then compartmentalise the 'modern world' until your hearts content.

various definitions
I imported a definition from the article modern, where "modern age" was redirected to previously. There's another one in modernity. We may need to do some more surgery to eliminate some duplication... --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;   18:24, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The Attention-template
No reason or discussion was given on this page as to why the template was slapped on this page by User:David.Monniaux. So to bring everyone up to speed and allow other people to comment here, here is a copy of the comments from Pages needing attention/History:
 * Modern world The list of personalities is extremely POV and shows some odd preferences (Lucas and Spielberg may be popular filmmakers, but they will probably be forgotten one century from now, just as we have forgotten many popular artists of the 19th century). David.Monniaux 06:58, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * User:David.Monniaux's argument is not correct for a number of reasons: The article is NOT just about a "list of personalities", it is about an era or age recognized by historians as commencing from the 1750s onwards. Secondly, what is "POV" by listing the MOST prolific mainstream movie directors and producers whose movies have been watched by billions and whose ideas have been absorbed into the mass popular culture of modern times? What logic is it to talk in terms of what will "be forgotten a century from now"? How does User:David.Monniaux know what will be in the future? Finally we are dealing with history and reality as we know it to be in the present, and the article does an excllent job of describing and explaining the Modern world, and those who shaped it, as we know and recognize it now. I am therefore removing it from this list. IZAK 06:36, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the proposed merger should be a rearrangement - Modern History up to (say) 1950 and Modern World since then. As I am going to try and rewrite the articles, suggestions welcome - and help on the non-European parts of the world. jackiespeel 4 Feb 2005

Modern history
The result of the VFD debate was redirect to Modern world, rather than merge. If you like to merge the content, check the page history. -- AllyUnion (talk) 13:28, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Europe/North American focus
I can see no mention of any developments in anywhere apart from Europe and North America, except for the mention of Ghandi. How did this article get to this point without anyone thinking "Oh, I wonder what was happening in the rest of the world". Very poor. pomegranate 13:31, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

I added an external link challenging the European notion of modern.

end of feudalism in Great Britain

 * The English Glorious Revolution (1688) marked the end of feudalism in Great Britain, creating a modern constitutional monarchy.

What about January 30 1649 surly a better cut off point? -- Philip Baird Shearer 22:20, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

No, after the Restoration in 1660 things were returned pretty much as they were before the Civil War with feudalism intact. The reign of Queen Anne is perhaps a more apposite period for the end of feudalism.

Modern/Early Modern Period Discussion
This article is pointless as currently written (do we really need a list of the most influential figures of the last 500 years?), but I don't think it has to be.

The question of what constitutes modernity is a serious one, and I think it might be useful to have an article discussing various interpretations for what it is and for when it started.

I am familiar with the academic debates concerning the end of antiquity and the beginning of the middle ages, and I can only assume (without any great knoweledge) that there are parallels with regard to the start of the modern period. --Francisx 04:35, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes there are such debates. Various candidates like printing, exploration, elevation of vernacular culture to replace Latin culture, classicist revival, beginning of absolutist rule, decline of scholasticism etc. Dates for the crucial events range from the 13th century onwards. Trouble is that modernity begins at different times for different phenomena.

Early modern is a subset of modern as far as I am concerned. The modern history department at Oxford includes everything post-classical.

69.177.103.38 22:05, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Move
Please do not move this page by cut and paste, as it fragments the page history. If you cannot move a page yourself, use requested moves. Thanks, Graham talk 13:55, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguating Jet
I fixed the link to "jet" in the article to point to "jet engine". I think that was the sense intended, as jet technology improves both planes and missiles in wartime. if "jet plane" was the sense intended, someone should fix my change. Vslashg (talk) 23:58, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Merge with modernity
As far as I know, "modernity" is a more accurate term for what is being discussed here and I believe this article should be merged into it. Using the title "modernity" also allows for discussion that is not as strictly historical and which may incorporate concepts within the realm of modernism, which is very closely related. Either way, I can't find any reasons for keeping both this and modernity. Since we're an encyclopedia, I believe the more precise and technical term should be used.

Peter Isotalo 15:47, 9 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Moved from Talk:Modernity
 * I think separate articles are more appropriate. "Modernity" refers specifically to the prevailing worldview and social thought, "Modern Times" refers to the specific period in human history. They obvously overlap in content, but deserve their own articles because they are distinctly different.
 * --Jerod


 * Separate articles are crucial & I would reccommend immediately removing the 'merge' box. In England academia (& I would assume its the same in other english-speaking places though I'm not sure??), the early modern period (or Early Modern Times) is a specific time which many historians mark approx 1500-1750. Modernity is more philosophical term used to describe a general rationalisation of the developed society during the very approx period 1650-1900. -- Buffyverse 22:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)


 * We're having a discussion, Buffy, and the box is there to encourage more people to participate. I think the readers can handle it without getting confused.
 * I for one am skeptical about the term "Modern Times" (especially when capitalized) when described so specifically. It sounds very colloquial and I can't myself recall seeing it used often enough to make it a title for this kind of article. "Modernity" is just as much about history and I can't quite recognize the idea that it would be confined to 1650-1900. The concept doesn't seem to be common in commercial encyclopedias, but is generally confied to the dictionaries where it's described as " The state or quality of being modern", a description which is very broad in scope. I welcome more references if anyone has them.
 * The main reason I want to merge the two articles (and Early Modern Times) is because the content right now is anything but voluminous, and because I feel that the concepts of modernity isn't really detachable from the period it describes. It's far more useful to describe the terms in the same article due to the vagueness of both terms.
 * Peter Isotalo 10:27, 16 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I've spent three years studying a lot of early modern history. I have never ever heard the terms "Early Modern Times" or "Modern Times" used as some kind phrase (though people do sometimes speak of 'early modern times' or 'modern times'/'modern period', did someone just make that up for Wikipedia, or are those actually academically-used terms (with capitals) which I'm ignorant of. Also are people aware that most often in recently written histories 'early modern' is used to describe a separate distinct period just before the 'modern' period. I'm pretty surprised 'early modern period' doesn't even have its own article, since it's pretty much separate from 'modern'. We have to bear in mind these terms are actaully quite subjective. I gave some dates above; early modern 1500-1750, and modern 1650-1900. But in fact these are very very apporox. Different historians often use differing dates for these periods. Some people consider the early modern period 1450-1650, some consider it 1500-1700....


 * But just because both the time period and the intellectual movements are vague does not mean we should just combine them. I think 'Modern Times' should be renamed 'Modern period' & I stand by my support for separate articles; 'Modernity' is not just a period in history, it's something more complex. Just because both articles 'Modernity' and 'Modern Times' are presently very weak articles, is not a good enough reason to merge. Merging 'Modernity' and 'Modern times' would be like merging 'Renaissance' with 'Late Middle Ages', or trying to merge 'Romanticism' with '19th Century'. There is a huge difference between historical periods and intellectual movements.


 * - Buffyverse 23:53, 17 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I must disagree on a few points. "Modernity" is for one thing not an "intellectual movement". It would be more analogous with "antiquity" (though not entirely) and is a description of the idea of being modern with all its complex connotations, not an overt statement of opinion. The intellectual movement is modernism even if it is more recent and doesn't encompass all of modernity. And I would hardly call modernity the weak article. It's this one that needs justification.
 * But I have spoken to friends of mine who are professional historians, though not specfically in the field of modernity and they agree completely with the idea that "Modern Times" is not an appropriate term for either early or late modern period and that if we really should have an article about the time period, it should be names something like "modern period" and that it should not be capitalized. "Modern Times" is more a Chaplin-movie or a very vague and ambiguous term for "recent times" than a proper title for a historical period.
 * Peter Isotalo 06:53, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Though the term "modern times" is growing less and less popular, maybe in part due to the growing adherence to the thought of the present being post-modern, it still remains a common usage to refer to the present time. However a number of works are beginning to use "Modern Times" to refer to a specific period.  So there seems to be some confusion as to what is it.  As "Modern Times" is growing in popularity to refer to a specific period of time in which the Western world thought and acted in particular patterns.  Personally I am pro for their to be two articles.  In my field (historical theology) these two are treated most often as seperate entities.  Also I agree with Peter Isotalo that this article here is the weak article. --Ryabe 15:16, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Although modern times may not be an ideal term, to merge it with modernity ignores the distinction between history (what is being referred to in modern times) and sociology/philosophy which see modernity as a shift in the way that social progress is viewed. While history does play an important part of the definition of modernity, it focuses on the outcomes rather than the specific events.


 * Wikipedia should not attempt launch "almost ideal" terms unless they're in widespread usage among scholars. "Modern times" is too vague to be used in this manner.
 * Peter Isotalo 08:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The point of view of a consumer vice a scholar: "Modernity" is a state of being, a state of mind. This is distinguished from (small-m) modern events which is what I suppose is meant by "Modern Times". An Islamic fundamentalist recently beheading a western journalist is not an example of modernity even if posted on the Internet. I personally find both terms ambiguous, particularly Modernity as it implies temporal not psychological orientation. Few contemporary traditional Bushmen would fit under the Modernity umbrella; would François Villon? On the other hand when I looked up my interest (leading me here) I looked up "modernity"; one must be practical. "Modern Times"? A great movie title. But what would replace it? Late 20th Century Culturally Euro-Centric Events? "Paul D. Gillen 02:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)"

I agree (not to merge): Modernity is a state of mind and should be discussed that way in Modernity, considering the opinion of the Britannica "Not until the 17th and 18th centuries in Europedid humankind make another leap comparable to that of the Neolithic revolution." In fact, this only applies to the central towns of Europe, capitals of philosophy, not the backwater towns who still had serfdom in the 19th century. "Era", then, in the first sense refers to a geological period of time, though Modern Era might redirect to Modern Times. The question is whether the final title should be Modern Times or, to be in line with Middle Ages, Modern Age, to deal with the post-1500 times. I will try to remember getting a standard comprehensive work on history to see whether it is not customary among historians in the English-speaking world to seperate Antiquity (500bc-500ad), middle ages and modern age (literally translated from German, its *new-age), while all three have sublevels, (eg. Greek-Roman, High-Late Mediaeval...) the third kind being early-late-contemporary, roughly: Also, there are overlapping terms: Finally, it should be emphasized that all "ages" took time to settle, so these three large cuts are not one year but more a century, one or two generations that felt a new time has begun. From Amerigo Verspuccis claim that America isn't India and the World a Globe until the Reformation of Saxony and England, people were so convinced that they invented the term "modern" in 1585 (says Merriam<Webster). FlammingoParliament 15:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * early modern times/age/era (whatsoever): Columbus/Gutenberg/Luther-Enlightenment/Revolutions
 * late modern ~                         : Enlightenment/Revolutions - today
 * contemporary/recent                   : immediatly relevant past, say, 100 years