This is the second and enlarged edition of the book which in 2013 won the Vojin Milić Award for best sociology book in Serbia. In this second edition, the author broadens and deepens his analyses: in a sweeping historical move he illuminates the processes preceding modernization and modernist ideas, and then goes on to explain the latter theoretically. In the next step, different aspects of nationalism are dissected, as a phenomenon tightly connected with modernism. The remaining chapters examine the “Serbian case”, foregrounding the prevalence of a narrow-minded nationalism, a permanent “avoidance” of modernity, and the absence of viable (leftist) alternatives.