Beyond Power: State, Society, and Global Change After 1750

Abstract

The article is an essay attempting to sketch an alternative explanation of societal change to the usual one concentrating on power and wars. From a survey of concepts and ideologies and their origins in section 2, the following section is devoted to two pillars of a total change of societies, the gradual emergence of equality of women and men and the global interrelationship of wares and ideas. The liberation of former colonies, treated in section 4, was a consequence of wars but also of new conceptions of social life. The Second World War was not only a trial of strength between states, but also a test of the validity of autocracy and other ideologies (section 5). Which ideas and social formations might make states resistant to autocracy is analysed in sections 6-7, and the importance of education and knowledge production in such resistance in section 8, followed by a conclusion. Bibliographical notes (selection) for each section are placed at the end.