modernize

v., -ized, -iz·ing, -iz·es.

v.tr.
To make modern in appearance, style, or character; update.

v.intr.
To accept or adopt modern ways, ideas, or style.

modernization mod'ern·i·za'tion (-ər-nĭ-zā'shən) n.
modernizer mod'ern·iz'er n.

For more information on modernization, visit Britannica.com.

Alter a property by installing up-to-date equipment, making contemporary cosmetic improvements, and deleting obsolete facilities.

To alter a property by installing up-to-date equipment, making contemporary cosmetic improvements, and deleting obsolete facilities.
Example: The redeveloper modernized the apartment building by installing dishwashers, wall-to-wall carpeting, a new gas furnace and by removing the coal storage bin.

verb

To make modern in appearance or style: update. See new/old.

v

Definition: bring up to date; remodel
Antonyms: antique, date, outmode, regress, wear

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To adapt a building or structure to current conditions, tastes, or usage, usually by remodeling.

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Process of sociocultural change in the Middle East that began about 1800 with European colonial expansion into the area.

Modernization is the term commonly used to denote the process of social change that the Middle East (and other parts of the world) has been experiencing for the last two hundred years. It may be traced to the Industrial Revolution and the impact of European industrial expansion and colonialism that was continually promoted by European agents - merchants, bankers, consuls, administrators, and missionaries. This process was embraced by early modernizing monarchs such as Selim III and Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire and Muhammad Ali of Egypt. Five aspects may be distinguished: economic, political, social, intellectual, and psychological.

Economic Aspects

The Middle East has long been integrated in the world market. The region has mainly exported primary products, agricultural goods such as cotton, tobacco, fruits, and coffee; recently, it became the prime producer and exporter of petroleum. To facilitate both export and the importation of manufactured goods, certain raw materials, and foodstuffs, a network for mechanized transport was developed (railroads, seaports, river traffic, roads [with bridges and tunnels], airports), along with a banking and finance system. This entailed vast investments of foreign and, more recently, national capital. A large manufacturing sector has been established, and the region encompasses the world's most abundant petroleum deposits - exploited by a large production and exporting industry.

Political Aspects

Modernization here constitutes the emergence of centralized nation-states. In addition to the ruling bodies, large, and usually cumbrous, civil services administer the various countries and provide social services. Taxation has risen steadily as a proportion of Gross National Product. Suffrage often excludes women, but elections are held for presidents and parliaments (although in practice many countries are under a one-party dictatorship). The prevailing political ideology is nationalism - utilizing certain elements of socialism - mainly as the outcome of working toward independence from European imperialism during the twentieth century.

Social Aspects

Many changes have occurred because of the great increase in population; the sharp fall in death rates has not been matched by a decline in birthrates, so the population has increased at about 3 percent per annum (including both immigration and emigration). Cities have grown to the point where more than 50 percent of the population is urban. Family structure has consequently shown some changes; most young middle-class couples live on their own and make their own decisions, instead of following the practices and decisions of their patriarch. Social services have been greatly expanded; those that were provided by religious or private philanthropy are now usually provided by the state. Education is available to almost all boys of school age (and to the majority of girls), and the literacy rate has risen from an average 5 percent in the early nineteenth century to an average of more than 50 percent today (in Israel, more than 90 percent).

Intellectual/Psychological Aspects

Intellectual modernization meant, originally, the absorption by a small elite of the bulk of Western science, scholarship, literature, and to a smaller extent, the arts. This was achieved primarily through the French language, but British and American sources have been increasingly used. Diffusion of Western-style culture has resulted in the establishment of a vast network of Western-style schools, which are secular and therefore distinct from the traditional Muslim/Christian/Hebrew schools. They include many universities and technical and research institutes.

Although printing was available in the eighteenth century, it became significant only during the nineteenth century, when books and pamphlets were followed by newspapers and periodicals that reached the general reading public. Concurrently, the traditional written languages - mainly, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and Hebrew - which were highly elaborate, formal, and remote from everyday speech, have been both simplified and enriched. New and hitherto unknown literary genres have developed, notably novels and plays, based on Western models. It is perhaps in them that one sees most clearly the psychological modernization that has occurred - the growing individualism, the weakening of traditional ways, and the participation in what may be called a world culture. The expanding fundamentalist tendencies in both Islam and Judaism may be explained by sociopolitical problems that continue to need attention, not by a growing traditionalism.

Bibliography

Berkes, Niyazi. The Development of Secularism in Turkey. Montreal: McGill University Press, 1964; reprint, New York: Routledge, 1998.

Black, Cyril E., and Brown, L. Carl, eds. Modernization in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire and Its Afro-Asian Successors. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1992.

Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798 - 1939. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1962.

Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1991.

Issawi, Charles. An Economic History of the Middle East and NorthAfrica. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.

Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 3d edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

— CHARLES ISSAWI

See military capability.

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Dansk (Danish)
v. tr. - modernisere
v. intr. - blive moderne

Nederlands (Dutch)
moderniseren, (zich) vernieuwen

Français (French)
v. tr. - moderniser
v. intr. - se moderniser

Deutsch (German)
v. - modernisieren, (sich) der modernen Zeit anpassen

Ελληνική (Greek)
v. - εκσυγχρονίζω/-ομαι, (μτφ.) εκμοντερνίζω/-ομαι, ανανεώνω

Italiano (Italian)
modernizzare

Português (Portuguese)
v. - modernizar, modernizar-se

Русский (Russian)
модернизировать

Español (Spanish)
v. tr. - modernizar
v. intr. - modernizarse

Svenska (Swedish)
v. - modernisera, bli modern

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
使现代化, 现代化, 近代化

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
v. tr. - 使現代化
v. intr. - 現代化, 近代化

한국어 (Korean)
v. tr. - 현대화하다
v. intr. - 현대식으로 되다

日本語 (Japanese)
v. - 近代化する, 近代的になる

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(فعل) يحدث, يعصر‏

עברית (Hebrew)
v. tr. - ‮התאים לשימוש מודרני, עשה למודרני‬
v. intr. - ‮סיגל לעצמו דיעות או שיטות מודרניות‬

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