Comparative Modernisation

The idea of writing this book originated from the need to provide an up-to-date textbook for students of “Comparative Modernisation”. Nevertheless, it is designed to be of use to general readers with an interest in the subject by offering a compact history of the modernisation of various political systems. It informs readers about the modernisation histories of Türkiye, France, Russia, China, Iran, Japan and Hungary.

As Rustow pointed out, an initiative to understand modernisation with a single analytical framework in each political unit is impossible. A common framework would not neatly fit cases in different geographies and societies. Research on the Middle East may stress the influence of the Ottomans, Islam and the Eastern Question while research about Africa may involve the process of decolonisation, African socialism and blackness.
Concordantly, each book chapter about the modernisation of a political unit in this study comprises both the chronological advances in this unit in light of its unique historical conditions and a comparison of them with the intellectual, economic, social and political developments in the West in order to identify similarities and differences.