ABSTRACT
While the term ‘modern’ is often used in ordinary speech to describe something that is up to date or contemporary, the term modernity has a more specifi c meaning when used in social or political thought. In this context it is used to refer to a specifi c period of time (roughly the period from the European Enlightenment in the eighteenth century to the late twentieth century). This period saw the development of a specifi c set of beliefs or ideas that were manifested across the fi elds of knowledge and enquiry, characterised by a new freedom to contest what had previously been taken as given and removed from challenge. These in turn led to a radical change in the forms of political and social organisation.
