The classic work of the eminent American historical sociologist Barrington Moore Jr. (1913–2005) offers an explanation of why Britain, the United States and France became rich and free countries, while Germany, Russia and Japan, despite all their modernization efforts, came to totalitarian dictatorships of the right or left. The author's comparative historical analysis of three paths from agrarian societies to modern industrial ones - the bourgeois revolution, the “revolution from above” and the peasant revolution - shows that both economic forces and the characteristics and dynamics of the social structure played a key role in this process. The book is addressed to historians , sociologists, political scientists, as well as everyone interested in the problems of political, economic and social modernization.