This Fleeting World

Our World: The Modern Era 59
changes transformed lifeways, cultural and religious traditions, patterns
of health and aging, and social and political relationships.
For world historians the modern era poses distinctive challenges. We
are too close to see it clearly and objectively; we have so much information
that we have difficulty distinguishing trends from details; and change has
occurred faster than ever before and embraced all parts of the world. What
follows is one attempt to construct a coherent overview based on generalizations
that have achieved broad acceptance among world historians.
Major Features and Trends
of the Modern Era
The modern era is the first to have generated a large body of statistical
evidence; so it is also the first in which we can quantify many of the larger
changes.
Increases in Population and Productivity
Human populations have increased faster than ever before during the
modern era, although growth rates slowed during the late twentieth century.
Between 1750 and 2000 the number of human beings increased
• Key Features and Trends •
of the Modern Era
• Rapid Population Growth
• Technological Innovation
• Large Increase in Productivity
• Harnessing of Fossil and other Forms of Energy
• Large Communities
• Bureaucracy
• Nationalism
• Longer Life Expectancy
• Broader Role for Women
• Commercialization
• Global Networks
• Destruction of Foraging and Agrarian Lifeways