Chapter by chapter resources - Chapter 4
Review Questions
- What is progress?
- In what sense is progress a modern phenomenon?
- How was change viewed in pre-modern times and what conditions encouraged this outlook?
- What role did the development of science perform in altering understandings of social relations?
- In what sense were the Industrial and the French Revolutions catalysts for modernity?
- What elements of modernity were different classical sociologists exploring?
- Why have nineteenth century understandings of social change been described as ‘linear’?
- What criticisms have been levelled at linear models of development?
- Is scientific knowledge characterised more by certainty or scepticism?
- What were the costs and benefits of modernity, according to classical sociologists?
- Why might Gray have stated that ‘a belief in progress is the Prozac of the thinking classes’?
- In what sense was colonialism ‘progressive’?
- How did imperial powers justify colonialism?
- What were the costs of colonialism’?
- What forces led to the decline in European colonialism?
- Why might structuralists emphasize exogenous forces when analyzing colonialism and inequality?
- Is global inequality a consequence of structures that hold the world together as a cultural and economic unit, or are poorer nation simply at an earlier stage of development?
- Why did ‘the development project’ emerge as a key global challenge in the wake of the Second World War?
- Did the Bretton Woods conference signify a fairer future for global trade? Did its structure promote development?
Further Reading
Coser, L. (1971), Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context, New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Hayek, F.A. (1944), The Road to Serfdom, Sydney, Dymock’s Book Arcade.
Hobsbawm, E. (1994), Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991, London, Michael Joseph.
Kumar, K. (1993), From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society: New Theories of the Contemporary World, Oxford, Blackwell.
Rist, G. (1999), The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith, London, Zed Books.
Roxborough, I. (1979), Theories of Underdevelopment, London, Macmillan.
Websites
A good introduction to the idea of progress is presented in this Teodor Shanin article:http://www.msses.ru/shanin/idea.html
A comprehensive site on Marx and Marxism is the Marxists Internet Archive: http://www.marxists.org/
Dr Rick Kuhn also has an excellent website on Marxism:http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/
Keith Windschuttle’s The Sydney Line website contains some articles defending the legacy of British colonialism:http://www.sydneyline.com/
Dinesh D’Sousa’s article, ‘Two Cheers for Colonialism’ is also available on the internet:http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i35/35b00701.htm
The homepage of the International Monetary Fund:www.imf.org
The homepage of the World Bank: http:// www.worldbank.org
