The word modernus was introduced into Latin in the sixth century; after that, the claim to being modern occurred in many centuries and cultures. Shakespeare, for example, referred to “modern ideas” in his plays, and historians have long debated where “modern” history begins: with Abraham? with Charlemagne? with the Renaissance?

Despite the claims of many ages to being modern, the term has fastened itself most firmly on the period from the end of the nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth. Its most specific historical use has been to describe the art, music, and dance that flourished at that time. When used in this sense, modern indicates a sharp break with lyrical, romantic music and dance and with the tradition of realism in the arts. The blurred images of the impressionists and the jarring music of Arnold Schoenberg are part of modern art because they break with accepted forms. The sexual rawness of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (see Chapter 22) or of Sigmund Freud’s analysis of the Wolf-Man’s dreams added to the multifaceted meanings of the word modern. Sometimes this intellectual break with the cultural past is referred to as modernism.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the word modern also referred to social phenomena. Women who went to work or entered universities or began careers were called modern women. They believed that, by showing themselves capable and rational, they could end restrictions placed on them. They lived different lives from those women who confined themselves to the domestic sphere. This departure from tradition also made them appear modern.

In seeking an education, these women were invoking a meaning of the words modern and modernity dating back to the Enlightenment. Rational thought and science have also been taken as the bedrock of the modern. Modernization—another derivative of the word modern—refers to the kind of scientific and technological progress that rational observation produced. Industry and its products—indoor plumbing, electricity, telephones, and automobiles—were signs of modernity. This focus on the term modern to indicate technological advance made it useful as a way to celebrate the West’s modernity in contrast to other people’s backwardness. Its association with new (and therefore superior) thinking and forward advancement became central to the justification for imperial rule, especially as Western empires were increasingly contested by 1900.

The many meanings of the word modern and those words deriving from it make it a multipurpose term. Complex, paradoxical, and dense with meaning, modern may not always be precise. Its very breadth explains why modern remains a much-debated term of history.