This chapter examines whether and how it is possible to reckon where modernity is going. While some researchers are tempted to think about the deep past in light of a shared and aspirational future, there are many reasons to be skeptical about doctrines of progress. Even to say with certainty what trends and dynamics animate a given period is never easy – to say when modernity began and what distinguishes it from the past requires a profound grasp of the multiple dimensions of time. Case studies in this chapter test common conceptions of modernity, such as “urbanization” and “empire,” for their rise and fall over a century, demonstrating how different ways of reckoning with the count of words are crucial to interpretation. It asks whether and how algorithms can constitute a tool for determining which forces are “trending” in a culture, and in a given period. Reviewing a case study on Hansard’s parliamentary debates, it explains how different measures of trending can be used to create new insight into how Britain changed over the course of the nineteenth century, highlighting references to a shared future where political rights dominated as one major finding.