ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some issues concerning Africa's experience of the process of modernity. The origin of the project of modernity could be traced to the eighteenth century, with attempts by Enlightenment thinkers 'to develop objective science, universal morality and law, and autonomous art according to their inner logic'. The first distinctive feature of modernity is the pace and scope of change that it effects. A second feature relates to the peculiar nature of modern institutions and role of rationality. The third peculiarity of modernity relates to the unbridled individualism, which is seen as a major factor distinguishing post-renaissance Europe, from colonial and post-colonial Africa. A fourth phenomenon is urbanisation. Fifthly, whilst the opportunity created by modernisation has been emphasised by people like Marx, Durkheim and Weber, yet, unlike the Cold Warriors of the modernisation paradigm, they warn that modernisation is a double-edged sword. The chapter looks at Christopher Pierson's Weberian criteria for distinguishing the modern nation state from its predecessors.
