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The terms Modern World, Modern Period, New World, Modern Times, Progressive Age, Modern Age, or Modern Era are recognized by historians as being that period of time commencing after the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, after the mid- 18th century.

The beginning of the period is marked by the end of the European Renaissance. Exact definition depends on the specific usage — for example a historian might be referring to the period 1650-, whilst a musician might be referring to music postdating the romantic era, which would date the beginning of modernity to around 1900.

The modern age may be defined to extend to the present day, or else to conclude with the advent of postmodernism (which may be dated any time from the 1960s to the early 1980s), again depending on the usage. In the case where modern is used in a sense which means "before postmodernism", it may refer specifically to modernism. Another view is that postmodernism may, however, be considered as just the latest development of modernism itself.

1 Characteristics

During this time earth-shattering changes have occurred in politics, industryFor other uses of this term, see Industry (disambiguation An industry is an area of economic production which involves large amounts of upfront capital investment before any profit can be realized. The most successful industries in a given sector tend, to, societyA society is a group of people that form a semi-closed (or semi-open) system, in which most interactions are with other individuals belonging to the group. More abstractly, a society is a network of relationships between entities. A society is an interdep, economicsEconomics is the social science studying how society uses its limited resources to meet desires and wants. Put otherwise, economics studies what, how and for whom society produces. This involves analyzing the production, distribution and consumption of go, commerceThis article is about the business concept; Commerce is also the name of several places in the United States''. Commerce is the exchange of something of value between two entities. That "something" may be goods, services, information, money, or anything e, transportationFor the movement of people or objects, see transport. For the shipping of convicted criminals to penal colonies, see penal transportation., communicationCommunication is the process of exchanging information usually via a common system of symbols. Communication" is the academic discipline which studies communication. Forms of communication Animal communications Interpersonal communications Marketing Propa, mechanizationMechanization refers to the use of powered machinery to help a human operator in some task. The use of hand powered tools is not an example of mechanization. The term is most often used in industry. The addition of powered machine tools, such as the steam, automationAutomation or Industrial Automation is the use of computers to control industrial machinery and processes, replacing human operators. It is a step beyond mechanization, where human operators are provided with machinery to help them in their jobs. The most, science, medicine, technology and culture which transformed the " Old World" into the Modern or New World, culminating in the Nuclear Age, the Sexual Revolution, the Information Age and finally a Leisure Age .

The modern world was basically shaped by three great Revolutions:

1. The American Revolution of 1776.
2. The French Revolution of 1789.
3. The Industrial Revolution in Britain during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries.

These events in turn sowed the seeds for:

• The Russian Revolution of 1917

They also contributed to the great wars of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, such as:

• The American Revolutionary War
• The Napoleonic Wars in Europe, and ultimately;
• The First World War ( 1914 - 1918) and
• The Second World War ( 1939 - 1945).

The American and French Revolutions ended the role of absolute monarchies to do as they wished in the world. Henceforth the world would become a "Modern" place where Democracy, and Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity became the new standards of government and of the rules of society.

Men such as the Emperor Napoleon introduced new codes of law in Europe based on merit and achievement, rather than on a class system rooted in Feudalism. The modern political system of Liberalism (derived from the word "Liberty" which means "Freedom") empowered members of the dis-enfranchised Third Estate. The power of elected bodies swept aside traditional rule by royal decree. A new attachment to one's nation, culture and language produced the powerful forces of Nationalism. This in turn ultimately contributed to new very modern ideologies such as the ideology of: Fascism; Socialism and Communism

Taken to an extreme, the desire to demolish all vestiges of the past and create a classless society, resulted in the abuses of Communism following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, which executed the Tsar and his family, created the Soviet Union, transformed serfdom, and forcibly modernized Mother Russia. In Germany, once the Kaiser had abdicated in 1918, chaos ensued, paving the way for the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

The new republic of the United States of America granted the vote to citizens, and placed reins on government based on the new Constitution and creating a system of checks and balances between the three different branches of government of the legislature, judiciary, and executive headed by a President who won a national election.

The mechanical and scientific inventions that were discovered, studied and implemented changed the way goods were produced and marketed. For example, modern machines in Britain speeded up the manufacture of commodities such as cloth and iron. The horse and ox were no longer needed as beasts of burden. The newly invented engine powered the car, train, ship, and eventually the plane produced rapidly each year. Artificially created energy powered any motor that drove any machine that was invented. Raw goods could be transported in huge quantities over vast distances and manufactured quickly and then marketed all over the world, making Britain into a very wealthy country.

Progress continued as Science saw so many new scientific discoveries. The telephone, radio, X-rays, microscopes, electricity all contributed to rapid changes in life-styles and societies. Discoveries of antibiotics such as penicillin brought new ways of combating diseases. Surgery and drugs kept on making progressive improvements in medical care, hospitals, and nursing. New theories such as Evolution and Psychoanalysis changed humanity's "old fashioned" views of itself.

Warfare was changed with the advent of new varieties of rifle, cannon, gun, machine gun, armor, tank, plane, jet, and missile. And weapons such as the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb, known along with chemical weapons and biological weapons as weapons of mass destruction actually made the devastation of the entire planet Earth posssible in minutes. All these are among the markings of the Modern World.

New attitudes to religion, with the church diminished, and a desire for personal freedoms, induced desires for sexual freedoms, which were ultimately accepted by large sectors of the Western World. Theories of " free love" and uninhibited sex were touted by radicals in the 1960s.

Equality of the sexes in politics and economics, women's liberation movement, gay rights for homosexuals and the freedom afforded by contraception allowed for greater personal choices in these intimate areas of personal life.

The combination and confluence of all these evolving extreme political, economic, industrial, scientific, medical, technological, psychological, and cultural changes continue to produce what we know today as the Modern World.