Contents -- Preface -- List of Permissions -- 1. Introduction: Comparative Studies and Sociological Theory-From Comparative Studies to Civilizational Analysis: Autobiographical Notes -- 2. The Civilizational Dimension in Sociological Analysis -- 3. Social division of labor, construction of centers and institutional dynamics: A reassessment of the structural-evolutionary perspective -- 4. Cultural Programs, the Construction of Collective Identities and the Continual Reconstruction of Primordiality -- 5. Some Observations on the Dynamics of Traditions -- 6. Comparative Liminality. Liminality and Dynamics of Civilizations -- 7. The Axial Age: The emergence of transcendental visions and the rise of clerics -- 8. Cultural traditions and political dynamics: the origins and modes of ideological politics -- 9. Transcendental vision, center formation and the role of intellectuals -- 10. Utopias and Dynamics of Civilizations: Some concluding observations -- 11. This-worldly transcendentalism and the structuring of the world: Weber's "Religion of China" and the Format of Chinese History and Civilization -- 12. Some Observations on the transformation of Confucianism (and Buddhism) in Japan -- 13. A Short Comparative Excurse on the (Theravada) Buddhist Civilizational Format and Historical Experience -- 14. Cultural Traditions, Conceptions of Sovereignty and State Formations in India and Europe -- 15. The Crystallization of Christian Civilizations in Europe -- 16. The Jewish Historical Experience in the Framework of Comparative Universal History -- 17. Civil Society, Public Sphere, the Myth of Oriental Despotism and Political Dynamic in Islamic Societies -- 18. Japan and the multiplicity of cultural programmes of modernity -- 19. Some Comparative Indications about the Dynamics of Historical Axial and non-Axial Civilizations.

20. The Civilizational Dimension of Modernity: Modernity as a Distinct Civilization -- 21. Multiple Modernities in an Age of Globalization -- 22. Multiple Modernities -- 23. Barbarism and Modernity: the Destructive Components of Modernity -- 24. Origins of the West. The origins of the West in recent Macrosociological Theory. The Protestant Ethic Reconsidered -- 25. Frameworks of the Great Revolutions: Culture, Social Structure, History and Human Agency -- 26. The Sectarian Origin of Modernity -- 27. The Breakdown and Transformation of Communist Regimes -- 28. The First Multiple Modernities: The civilization of the Americas -- 29. Mirror Image Modernities: Contrasting Religious Premises of Japanese and U.S. Modernity -- 30. Israeli Politics and the Jewish Political Tradition: Principled Political Anarchism and the Rule of the Court -- 31. The Puzzle of Indian Democracy -- 32. Center Formation and Protest Movements in Europe and the U.S.A.: Comparative Perspective -- 33. The Structuring of Social Protest in Modern Societies: The Limits and Direction of Convergence -- 34. Construction of Trust, Collective Identity and the Fragility and Continuity of Democratic Regimes -- B. The Contemporary Scene -- 35. The Contemporary Scene: Beyond the Hegemony of the Nation and Revolutionary State Model -- 36. Globalization, civilizational traditions and multiple modernities -- 37. The Jacobin Component of Fundamentalist Movements -- 38. The Reconstruction of Religious Arenas in the Framework of Multiple Modernities -- List of Publications -- Index of Names -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y -- Z -- Index of Subject -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.