Modern European Intellectual History: Individuals, Groupings, and Technological Change, 1800-2000

This non-technical introduction to modern European intellectual history traces the evolution of ideas in Europe from the turn of the 19th century to the modern day.

Placing particular emphasis on the huge technological and scientific change that has taken place over the last two centuries, David Galaty shows how intellectual life has been driven by the conditions and problems posed by this world of technology. In everything from theories of beauty to studies in metaphysics, the technologically-based modern world has stimulated a host of competing theories and intellectual systems, often built around the opposing notions of ‘the power of the individual’ versus collectivist ideals like community, nation, tradition and transcendent experience. In an accessible, jargon-free style, Modern European Intellectual History unpicks these debates and historically analyses how thought has developed in Europe since the time of the French Revolution.

Among other topics, the book explores:

* The Kantian Revolution * Feminism and the Suffrage Movement * Socialism and Marxism * Nationalism * Structuralism * Quantum theory * Developments in the Arts * Postmodernism * Big Data and the Cyber Century

Highly illustrated with 80 images and 10 tables, and further supported by an online Instructor’s Guidet, this is the most important student resource on modern European intellectual history available today.