Theories of modernisation are cod-scientific projections of Enlightenment values. They tell us nothing about the future. But they do help us to understand the present. They show the lingering power of the Christian faith that history is a moral drama, a tale of progress or redemption, in which - despite everything we know of it - morality rules the world.

Non-Progress: The myth of modernisation (p. 174) - Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)