1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910786559103321

Autore

Vernon James <1965->

Titolo

Distant strangers : how Britain became modern / / James Vernon

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, California : , : University of California Press, , 2014

©2014

ISBN

0-520-95778-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (185 p.)

Collana

Berkeley Series in British Studies ; ; 9

Disciplina

941

Soggetti

Social change - Great Britain - History

Civilization, Modern

Civilization, Modern - British influences

Great Britain Civilization

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Preface -- 1. What Is Modernity? -- 2. A Society of Strangers -- 3. Governing Strangers -- 4. Associating with Strangers -- 5. An Economy of Strangers -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

What does it mean to live in the modern world? How different is that world from those that preceded it, and when did we become modern? In Distant Strangers, James Vernon argues that the world was made modern not by revolution, industrialization, or the Enlightenment. Instead, he shows how in Britain, a place long held to be the crucible of modernity, a new and distinctly modern social condition emerged by the middle of the nineteenth century. Rapid and sustained population growth, combined with increasing mobility of people over greater distances and concentrations of people in cities, created a society of strangers. Vernon explores how individuals in modern societies adapted to live among strangers by forging more abstract and anonymous economic, social, and political relations, as well as by reanimating the local and the personal.