ABSTRACT
Over the past 200 years, Western countries have been through a series of radical economic and social transformations. They have undergone a structural transformation from a preindustrial to an industrial (and partly, postindustrial) economy; they have experienced several ‘ups and downs’ in terms of globalization; and they have suffered a number of violent fluctuations in business cycles, the latest of which was more vehement than anything witnessed in the last 80 years. Meanwhile, they have also seen various upturns and downturns in inequality, a drastic decline in birth and mortality rates, a significant rise in life expectancy, an unprecedented increase in living standards, the growth of individualism, and in Europe at least, a steady advance of secularization. Western societies have certainly changed more significantly since 1800 than previously.
