In modern history, the Industrial Revolution is seen as the biggest break, helping humankind move from the Agrarian to the Industrial era.
In Ten Ideologies, eminent scholar and politician S. Jaipal Reddy presents an overview of world history and studies the four great movements that laid the foundation of the Industrial Revolution:
- The Renaissance;
- Humanism;
- Protestant Reformation; and
- The Scientific Revolution.
He also points out that these movements were themselves influenced by the legacy of China, India and West Asia.
The author believes that ideology is just as important today; if social ideologies die out, primordial cultural identities based on religion, race, or nation will reawaken, thereby dividing society further. In this context, he discusses ten major ideologies that shaped the world: (i) Nationalism, (ii) Democracy, (iii) Liberalism, (iv) Capitalism, (v) Evolutionary Socialism, (vi) Revolutionary Socialism, (vii) Feminism, (viii) Environmentalism, (ix) Nuclear Pacifism, and (x) Globalism.
Informative and incisive, this reader provides a rare and compact coverage of ideologies, and a study of the great asymmetry between pre-industrial passions and post-industrial weapons.