Starting from two different planes of analysis, this volume contributes to recent debates on the character of contemporary modernity(ies). At the macro-theoretical level, some chapters discuss the bases for a comparative sociology, in an emphatic sense, i.e., a sociology that deals with the complex and difficult articulation between the spreading of "modern" structures and forms of life from a few centres, and regional movements of recodification and reaction to advances of "western modernity". In this confrontation new configurations arise, as does a type of interaction between the different regions of world society, which paradoxically removes from the presumed original centers their monopoly over the production of modern structures, signs and forms of life. At the empirical level, the book researches concrete features assumed by such a decentering dynamic of modernity in diverse contexts, as well as in different fields of social life.