Four Approaches to the Making of the Modern World

century onwards who have influenced my work, I havechosen four representatives. For the eighteenth centuryEnlightenment there is the philosopher and historianDavid Hume. For the nineteenth century there is thelawyer and comparative anthropologist Sir Henry Maine.For the years between 1920 and the 1950’s there is theWeberian sociologist Norman Jacobs with his comparisonof Japan, China and the West. For the second half of thetwentieth century there is the philosopher, sociologist andanthropologist Ernest Gellner.Alan Macfarlane, F.B.A., is an Emeritus Professor ofAnthropology at Cambridge University and a Life Fellowof King’s College. His website is alanmacfarlane.com.