Modernity has once again become a major theme in sociology. This is unsurprising in respect to the aspirations of peoples and countries across the globe. Once the package of material and ideal goods that travels under the label of modernity is spotted, it takes the heroic personality of a Tolstoy to refuse what he saw as a corruption of nature, human aspirations and community. For most of the world, however, the prospect of a future where material security, small to begin with, attains a linear progression, where there is no intrinsic limitation in the diffusion of knowledge that is rational, scientific and literate, and where some idea of a deliberated governance (democracy is perhaps too strong a term) is a possibility, is, I think, a truth evidenced almost universally. From China to Peru there is a determination to become modern.