A self-proclaimed "left dissident Marxist", Mayer's major interests are in modernization theory and what he terms "The Thirty Years' Crisis" between 1914 and 1945. Mayer posits that Europe was characterized during the 19th century by a rapid economic modernization by industrialization and retardation of political change. He has argued that what he refers to as "The Thirty Years' Crisis" was caused by the problems of a dynamic new society produced by industrialization coexisting with a rigid political order. He feels that the aristocracy of all of the European countries had too much power, and it was their efforts to keep power that resulted in World War I, the development of fascism, World War II, and the Holocaust.