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This cutting edge work offers an alternative perspective on existing paradigms of modernization and development that originated in the West from the vantage point of non-western, late-modernizing societies. It considers how East Asian philosophical ideas enrich the reformulation of the concept of development or societal development, and how influential principles of traditional culture such as yin-yang dialectic interact with modern ideas and technology. It addresses the significance of alternative discourses as culturally independent scholarship, and the problems of pervasive mechanisms of social, political, economic, and cultural dependence in the global academic world.
List of contents
Prolegomena: Alternative Discourses in Social Science as "Culturally Independent" Scholarship.- The Yin-Yang Dialectic and Principles of Social Change: Culturally Independent Alternative Sociological Ideas.- Selective Modernization and Alternative Modernities: In Search of an Alternative Theory.- From The "Culture of Development" Toward "Cultured" Development: An Alternative Theoretical Approach.- Postscript.
About the author
Dr Kim Kyong-Dong is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Seoul National University, South Korea. The preeminent sociologist in Korea, he has devoted his career to analyzing and comparing "east" and "west" issues from a cultural perspective. After gaining his PhD at Cornell University in the US, Professor Kim was a visiting scholar in the US, Taiwan, France and a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, DC, as well as President of the Korean Sociological Association. He has widely published in English, Korean, Japanese and French on issues of development and modernization, social change and industrialization, sociological theory, education and religion.
Summary
This cutting edge work offers an alternative perspective on existing paradigms of modernization and development that originated in the West from the vantage point of non-western, late-modernizing societies. It considers how East Asian philosophical ideas enrich the reformulation of the concept of development or societal development, and how influential principles of traditional culture such as yin-yang dialectic interact with modern ideas and technology. It addresses the significance of alternative discourses as culturally independent scholarship, and the problems of pervasive mechanisms of social, political, economic, and cultural dependence in the global academic world.
Additional text
“This three-volume series is a magnificent synthesis of questions and debates over modernization, development and Confucianism in the context of Korea and East Asia. … In sum, the trilogy is a great accomplishment not only for the author, but also for the Korean sociological community, channeling their distinctive experience of modernization with global academia.” (Jaeyeol Yee, Development and Society, Vol. 46 (3), December, 2017)
Report
"This three-volume series is a magnificent synthesis of questions and debates over modernization, development and Confucianism in the context of Korea and East Asia. ... In sum, the trilogy is a great accomplishment not only for the author, but also for the Korean sociological community, channeling their distinctive experience of modernization with global academia." (Jaeyeol Yee, Development and Society, Vol. 46 (3), December, 2017)
