Recognizing European Modernities: A Montage of the Present

Heavy volume will require additional postage for destinations outside of the USA. "For over a century, Europe has been characterised by a plurality of capitalist modernities. At any moment, each country possesses its own distinctly modern qualities which are partly shaped through interrelationships with other countries. Each European commodity society has experienced successive, but different overlapping, periods of industrial modernity (large scale factories and urban growth), high modernity (social modernization promoted by social engineering) and hypermodernity (the acceleration of modernity, yielding new circumstances and sensibilities). Interrogating contemporary hypermodern Europe thus requires an exploration of industrial and high modern Europe. Recognising European Modernities explores a century of civilisation through a critical examination of the extreme case of Sweden. Using montage - relayering multiple pasts and on-going present - the book challenges the contemporary obsession with "postmodernity", demanding a deeper, more connective understanding of the pleasures and dangers of the European present. The author visits three spectacular spaces: the Stockholm Exhibition of 1897, the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930 and the Globe, a contemporary multi-purpose arena. Analysis of these pivotal spaces reveals the on-going process of modernization as new forms of consumption are repeatedly entangled in changing discourses of power to be reworked and translated into cultural politics. ." (Publisher). "." . . the combination of theoretical daring and empirical intricacy is, simply, stunning . . . Part tour guide, part circus barker, part performance artist, part cultural critic, but always--and dazzlingly--human geographer . . . [Pred] revisits and reinscribes modernism within critical social thought, relayering multiple pasts within our own precarious present . . ."-Derek Gregory, University of British Columbia ." . . a groundbreaking experimental work . . . Pred's scholarship is recognised worldwide and he has proved himself on every account. Rather than resting on his previous laurels he has taken the risk of inventing new forms to express his understanding of modernity."-Paul Rabinow, University of California, Berkely "Pred is to be congratulated for having produced a challenging and stimulating book that will deepen and enhance our grasp of European modernity."-David Chaney, University of Durham".…