Modernity is a much-discussed topic in history. There is a lot to say about it. In response to the very direct question, I’d encourage you not to get too hung up on semantics. While I recognize that the word “modern” can be confusing to those unfamiliar with periodization and historiography, the question is really whether or not the “modern” period makes sense as a distinct period of history.

First, I’d argue that the time period you’ve proposed isn’t actually what historians generally mean when they say modern. 1500-1800 is more roughly associated with the early modern period. Many people date the start of the modern period as late as the French Revolution, although there isn’t a single universally agreed upon date or event. In any case, to the extent that historians agree that the “modern” era is a distinct thing and that “modernity” is a concept worth using, there isn’t a lot to contest that it reaches well into the 20th century, with the possible end (and the period of “post-modernity” starting) sometime after World War 2. There are those that still argue that fundamental characteristics of the modern period are still operative and that we are still in the period of “modernity.”

What are those characteristics of modernity? There are a lot of different takes on it. I really like Marshall Berman’s work on modernity, in particular All That is Solid Melts Into Air, in which Berman argues that modernity is defined by being a period of near-constant renewal and reinvention. This instability causes a constant ambivalence among “moderns” that puts them (us?!) in a state where nothing seems permanent. He extends this analysis to works of modernism (which I will briefly and surely unsatisfactorily define as artistic expressions of modernity). This constant instability is a feature of modernity when compared to earlier periods and is a source of strength (in that modernity is quite flexible and dynamic and promises the ability for self-transformation) and a source of trouble/anxiety (because of the seemingly unshakable ambivalence that accompanies it). Berman calls it modernity a period of “unity of disunity.”

So why is this idea compelling? If there is credence to the idea of the “modern” period, I think it lies in the fact that things change much more quickly than they did in the past – owing in large part to technological advancement. For much of human history things did not really change at all from the perspective of any given individual. The rate at which things change in the modern period does mean that individuals living in that era see much more drastic changes on the scale of their own lifetime. I think this is a very important factor to consider when thinking about the modern period and I don’t really worry too much about what the precise dates to mark the beginning and end are.

On the other hand, there are people that say modernity isn’t really as unique as some theorists say. There is definitely also credibility to this idea as well. There is a lot of good research coming out that argues many of the features that historians have argued exist as a part of the modern period were also present in “pre-modern” cultures and societies, or perhaps it is better put the other way as neotraditionalists would argue – the modern period contains many of the same features as other historical eras (so as not to privilege the modern period).

There is also the argument that modernity is a bit of a capacious term. In my field, Ronald Grigor Suny is one that has made this argument. Modernity, in this critique, has been used in so many ways to explain to many different things that it begins to lose much explanatory power at all. There is credence here as well. Although I think that the main takeaway from this argument is that historians need to be careful with their definitions and try to be as precise as possible, not that the term is useless as an analytic category altogether (Suny might disagree with me there, I think).

I think there is still some value to think about the last couple of hundred years through the lens of modernity as I described above. It certainly isn’t a mode of analysis that is above reproach or critique, but there is something there worth holding on to, even if we are still working out exactly what that is as historians.