In this talk, I will argue that the past three decades or so have seen what arguably amounts to the greatest and most dramatic transformation in history, ushering in what I call the Age of Global Modernity. I will also argue that most of the change behind the breakthrough of Global Modernity is spatially concentrated in Asia, especially in East Asia. To substantiate these two claims, I will first present data supporting the notion of the relatively recent onset of the Age of Global Modernity and then show, in a second step, how (East) Asia has contributed to this development. In a third step, I will draw some conclusions as to the likely consequences of the breakthrough of Global Modernity.
Volker Schmidt is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore
