Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the language–analogies, metaphors, and subtle differences of synonyms–used to portray change as motion in time. It examines theories that Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber formulated between the 1840s and early 1920s to account for the development of industrial capitalism and modern industrial society. The book explores how social theorists conceptualized the consequences of the interrelated formation of industrial capitalism, nation-states, and a new kind of imperialism between the 1880s and 1914. It examines how analysts explained the processes of change unleashed by imperialist expansion in the late nineteenth century. The book discusses how social theorists grappled with the issues of change after World War II in a milieu shaped by the Cold War politics and national liberation movements. It reviews how theorists have explained the crises that have occurred almost non-stop on a worldwide scale since the mid-1970s.