Four Big Ideas Book Review

Looking at the modern world that we live in today, authors Scott L. Montgomery and Daniel Chirot in there book The Shape of the New have narrowed it down to “Four Big Ideas” that have shaped the modern world in which we live in today and the men who defined them. These four men didn’t invent these ideas but they are looked at by these two authors as the most influential individuals who brought the most change into the modern world. Montgomery and Chirot emphasize that “Ideas, therefore, are not mere mental substance. Operating through leaders, the public, interest groups, and ordinary individuals, they are a determining factor in the creation of social reality” (3). And in terms of the “Four Big Ideas,” Montgomery and Chirot argue that through
The authors of the book want to make it clear that it is ideas that have been the primary forces behind modern history. But, they also want to make it clear that these ideas were already being discussed long before these individuals came along. Montgomery and Chirot point to “The Enlightenment was a critical period for the birth of modernity” (6). They point to the fact that it was during this period in history that the ideas and viewpoints of the past came into question and outgrew skepticism and eventually over time the old ways of thinking were rejected or substituted in smaller versions. Basically “it was in the late seventeenth century, eighteenth century, and early nineteenth centuries when most of the fundamental ideas of modernity were born” (Montgomery and Chirot 6). I agree that when looking at the modern world that we live in that the ideas of the Enlightenment ultimately paved the way for future individuals to come up with these four “big” ideas that have shaped the modern world. Ideas for better or worse are the driving force in the world that make us make decisions in our own daily