Introduction -- Part I : The pre-modern world -- World languages and human dispersals: a mininalist view -- Nomads and oases in Central Asia -- Why poverty was inevitable in traditional societies -- Part II : Transitions to the modern world -- On a little known chapter of Mediterranean history -- Ernest Gellner and the escape to modernity -- The emergence of modern European nationalism -- Sovereign individuals -- Part III : Modernity and its discontents -- Science, politics, enchantment -- Deconstructing post-modernism: Gellner and Crocodile Dundee -- A methodology without presuppositions? -- Gellner's positivism -- Left versus right in French political ideology -- Property, justice and common good after socialism -- Social contract, democracy and freedom -- Thoughts on liberalisation -- Peace, peace at last?

1. Social change