Abstract

This paper proposes a rewriting of modernity departing form the argument that Western modernity has never been a unique tradition but rather a tension between at least two large slopes that have never ceased to be weighed and compared: an Anglo-Saxon and a Latin slope. Without neglecting the contribution of other traditions, and departing from the analysis of modernity today, the article makes the hypothesis that putting at the center analytically this Anglo-Saxon and Latin division, that is, undertaking the study of the differential effects of geography on the history of modernity, makes it possible to propose a geo-modern rewriting of the contemporary situation. To interpret Western modernity from its origins as an intra-Western cleavage rather than as a unit, invites to read the past anew, but, moreover, it allows to shed new light to the historical present of modernity.