ABSTRACT

Those scholars to whom we now refer as sociologists of modernity tried to understand the European nineteenth century. But they were not entirely aware that this was they were doing, or, maybe better, that doing this was possibly not the same as ‘theorizing modernity’. And the canonization of sociology has forgotten about the scholars as persons, their intentions and the context of their writing. As a consequence, one has tended to conflate ‘modernity’ with the European nineteenth century. The problem is still with us, and the following observations are meant to open up questions that result from this conflation.