political revolutions

A political revolution, in the Trotskyist theory, is an upheaval in which the

government is replaced, or the form of government altered, but in which property
relations are predominantly left intact. The revolutions in France in 1830 and 1848
are often cited as political revolutions.

industrial revolution and capitalism in Europe

The Industrial Revolution, now also known as the First Industrial Revolution,
was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Europe and the United
States, in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. ... The
textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods.

The history of capitalism has diverse and much debated roots, but fully fledged
capitalism is generally thought to have emerged in Northwestern Europe,
especially in the Low Countries and Great Britain, in the sixteenth to seventeenth
centuries.

Socialism
Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social
ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management, as well as
the political theories and movements associated with them. Social ownership can
be public, collective or cooperative ownership, or citizen ownership of equity.

Feminism
Feminism is a range of social movements, political movements, and ideologies that
share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve the political, economic,
personal, and social equality of the sexes.

Urbanisation
Urbanisation refers to the population shift from rural areas to urban areas, the
gradual increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas, and the ways in
which each society adapts to this change.

religious change
Religious conversion is the adoption of a set of beliefs identified with one
particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Thus
"religious conversion" would describe the abandoning of adherence to one
denomination and affiliating with another.
Science
Science and technology have had a major impact on society, and their impact is
growing. ... By making life easier, science has given man the chance to pursue
societal concerns such as ethics, aesthetics, education, and justice; to create
cultures; and to improve human conditions.

SECTION IV: Intellectual Forces in the Development of Sociological Thinking

Although social factors are important, the primary focus of this chapter is the
intellectual forces that played a central role in shaping sociological theory. In real
world, of course, intellectual factors cannot be separated from social factors. The
many intellectual forces that shaped the development of social theories are
discussed within the national context where their influence was primarily felt, we
begin with the enlightenment and its influences on the development of
sociological theory in France.

Rise of British Sociology

In a global age, the concept of British sociology poses an interesting question with
regard to the viability of national sociologies. Neither academic disciplines nor the
subjects studied fit easily into national boundaries. An academic's closest
colleague may be in New York or Delhi rather than in Lancaster or Birmingham.
Key figures in British sociology, such as Dahrendorf, Westergaard, and Bauman are
not British but have spent some or all of their careers working in British institutions
(Halsey 1989). As sociologists working in Britain they were well placed to
investigate questions related to British society. Then there are the British
sociologists who have left Britain to research and teach elsewhere; John
Goldthorpe to Sweden and Germany, and John Hall and Michael Mann to
the United States, for example. British sociologists have often studied other
nations too: Ronald Dore focuses on Japan, David Lane on Russia, and John
Torrance on Austria to name a few. With all of these international influences
exemplifing the present status of sociology in Britain, how "British" then is British
sociology? This entry briefly explores the range of sociology that has developed in
Britain from its origins to the present day, and ends by noting possible implications
for its future.

The Political Economy of Modern Britain provides an original discussion of Britainʼs

relative economic decline since World War Two and offers approaches to
overcome this poor economic performance.

a meliorism
Meliorism is an idea in metaphysical thinking holding that progress is a real
concept leading to an improvement of the world. It holds that humans can,
through their interference with processes that would otherwise be natural,
produce an outcome which is an improvement over the aforementioned natural
one.

Social evolution
Social evolution is a subdiscipline of evolutionary biology that is concerned with
social behaviors that have fitness consequences for individuals other than the
actor. It is also a subdiscipline of sociology that studies evolution of social
systems.

Italian sociology
The two places for training professional sociologists are the research center and
the university, respectively; each type of institution has an ambivalent and
fluctuating relationship with the two sociologies.

SECTION V: General Themes for Understanding Cultures

Knowing the patterns and precedents of the past provides the means by which
people may develop awareness of their place in contemporary culture and society.
Such knowledge also helps frame an understanding of the main currents of oneʼs
own culture and that of others across time in order to place oneʼs personal
experience in the collective that constitutes culture at large.

Anthropological Themes:
● universalism
Universalism is the philosophical and theological concept that some ideas have
universal application or applicability. A community that calls
itself universalist may emphasize the universal principles of most religions, and
accept others in an inclusive manner.

● Holism
the theory that parts of a whole are in intimate interconnection, such that they
cannot exist independently of the whole, or cannot be understood without
reference to the whole, which is thus regarded as greater than the sum of its
parts. Holism is often applied to mental states, language, and ecology.

● integration
integration, in U.S. history, the goal of an organized movement to break
down the barriers of discrimination and segregation separating African
Americans from the rest of American society. Racial segregation was peculiar
neither to the American South nor to the United States (see apartheid).

● Adaptation
Adaptation is the evolutionary process where an organism becomes better suited
to its habitat. This process takes place over many generations. It is one of the
basic phenomena of biology. When people speak about adaptation, they often
mean a 'feature' (a trait) which helps an animal or plant survive.

● Cultural Relativism
Cultural relativism is the idea that a person's beliefs, values, and practices
should be understood based on that person's own culture, rather than be judged
against the criteria of another.

SECTION II: The Dynamics of Culture

In the 19th century, anthropology also attained clear identity as a discipline.
Strictly defined as the science of humankind, it could be seen as superseding
other specialized disciplines such as economics and political science. In practice
and from the beginning, however, anthropology concerned itself overwhelmingly
with small-scale preindustrial societies. On the one hand was physical
anthropology, concerned chiefly with the evolution of humans as a biological
species, with the successive forms and protoforms of the species, and with
genetic systems. On the other hand was social and cultural anthropology: here the
interest was in the full range of humankindʼs institutions, though its researches
were in fact confined to those found among existing preliterate peoples in Africa,
Oceania, Asia, and the Americas. Above all other concepts, “culture” was the
central element of this great area of anthropology, or ethnology, as it was often
called to distinguish it from physical anthropology. Culture, as a concept, called
attention to the nonbiological, nonracial, noninstinctual basis of the greater part of
what is called civilization: its values, techniques, and ideas in all spheres. Culture,
as defined in Tylorʼs landmark work of 1871, Primitive Culture, is the part of human
behaviour that is learned. From cultural anthropology more than from any other
single social science has come the emphasis on the cultural foundations of human
behaviour and thought in society.

A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and

symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are
passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the
next. Culture is symbolic communication.

Cultural Universals and Particulars

In his opinion, there are universals and particulars in philosophy, religion
and culture. According to Wiredu, universals are ultimately based on human
nature, which is common, whereas particulars stem from some accidental
variations in culture.

material culture
Material culture refers to the physical objects, resources, and spaces that people
use to define their culture. These include homes, neighborhoods, cities, schools,
churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, offices, factories and plants, tools,
means of production, goods and products, stores, and so forth.

non material culture

Nonmaterial culture includes creations and abstract ideas that are not embodied
in physical objects. In other words, any intangible products created and shared
between the members of a culture over time are aspects of their nonmaterial
culture. Social roles, rules, ethics, and beliefs are just some examples.

Subculture and counter-culture

A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the
parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding
principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural,
political and sexual matters.

A counterculture is a subculture whose values and norms of behavior differ

substantially from those of mainstream society, often in opposition to mainstream
cultural mores. A countercultural movement expresses the ethos and aspirations
of a specific population during a well-defined era.

culture shock
Culture shock is an experience a person may have when one moves to a cultural
environment which is different from one's own; it is also the personal
disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to
immigration or a visit to a new country, a move between social environments, or
simply transition to another type of life

Ethnocentrism and cultural revivalism

Ethnocentrism is the act of judging another culture based on the values and
standards of one's own culture – especially regarding language, behavior,
customs, and religion. These aspects or categories are distinctions that define
each ethnicity's unique cultural identity.

CULTURAL REVIVALS. The term cultural revival refers to the formation of group

identity around a common culture, where a claim is forwarded that the aspects
of culture with which the group identifies have been recovered after losses due to
colonization, forced or voluntary relocation, oppression, or modernization.Sep 11,
2019

SECTION III: Culture as a complex Whole

Culture is that complex whole that includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals,
custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a human being as a
member of society. Culture is viewed as the ways of doing, being, and explaining,
as they exist in each particular system.
Elements of culture
The major elements of culture are symbols, language, norms, values, and
artifacts. Language makes effective social interaction possible and influences how
people conceive of concepts and objects. Major values that distinguish the United
States include individualism, competition, and a commitment to the work ethic.

● Beliefs
Belief is the attitude that something is the case or true. In epistemology,
philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to personal attitudes associated with
true or false ideas and concepts. However, "belief" does not require active
introspection and circumspection.

● Symbols
Symbolism is the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities, by giving
them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal
sense. Symbolism can take different forms. ... Thus, symbolic meaning of an
object or an action is understood by when, where, and how it is used. It also
depends on who reads the work.

● Language
A language is a system of communication which consists of a set of sounds and
written symbols which are used by the people of a particular country or region for
talking or writing. ... Students examined how children
acquire language. Language is not art but both are forms of human behavior.

● Values
Values are basic and fundamental beliefs that guide or motivate attitudes or
actions. They help us to determine what is important to us. ... Values in a narrow
sense is that which is good, desirable, or worthwhile. Values are the motive
behind purposeful action.

● Law
Law is a system of rules that are created and enforced through social or
governmental institutions to regulate behavior. It has been defined both as "the
science of justice" and "the art of justice". Law regulates and ensures that
individuals or a community adhere to the will of the state.

Aspects of culture
Culture aspects in urban planning have been classically addressed in terms of
urban arts and city planning. Cultural resources have become recognised as an
important component of urban space. Growing features are cultural policy and
practice. Relevant issues are: societal needs, socio-economic issues, the natural/
structural/infrastructural environment, and social aspects of urban planning.

● Culture is learned
● Culture is shared
● Culture is cumulative
● Culture is dynamic
● Culture is diverse
● Culture is integrated