Economic, technological, and sociopolitical changes have been transforming the cultures of advanced industrial societies in profoundly important ways during the past few decades. This ambitious work examines changes in religious beliefs, in motives for work, in the issues that give rise to political conflict, in the importance people attach to having children and families, and in attitudes toward divorce, abortion, and homosexuality. Ronald Inglehart's earlier book, "The Silent Revolution" (Princeton, 1977), broke new ground by discovering a major intergenerational shift in the values of the populations of advanced industrial societies. This new volume demonstrates that this value shift is part of a much broader process of cultural change that is gradually transforming political, economic, and social life in these societies. Inglehart uses a massive body of time-series survey data from twenty-six nations, gathered from 1970 through 1988, to analyze the cultural changes that are occurring as younger generations gradually replace older ones in the adult population. These changes have far-reaching political implications, and they seem to be transforming the economic growth rates of societies and the kind of economic development that is pursued.

羅納德•英格爾哈特，執教於美國密歇根大學，當代西方政治文化研究的大師級人物，由於其在政治文化研究上的傑齣貢獻，成為少數入選美國藝術與科學院院士的社會科學學者之一。他提齣的物質主義∕後物質主義價值觀、後現代價值觀和代際文化轉變等重要概念及理論為當代政治文化研究最有份量的成果之一。他主持的世界價值觀念調查項目提供瞭目前唯一一個研究範圍覆蓋約世界上90%人口的民眾價值觀數據庫。2011年，與皮帕諾•裏斯共同獲得政治學最傑齣貢獻奬——約翰•斯凱特政治學奬。

代錶著作：《靜悄悄的革命》《發達工業社會的文化轉型》《現代化與後現代化》《現代化、文化變遷與民主》《國際化傳媒：全球化世界的文化多樣性》。