Liquid Modernity
1. Auflage März 2000
240 Seiten, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
In this new book, Bauman examines how we have moved away from a'heavy' and 'solid', hardware-focused modernity to a 'light' and'liquid', software-based modernity. This passage, he argues, hasbrought profound change to all aspects of the human condition. Thenew remoteness and un-reachability of global systemic structurecoupled with the unstructured and under-defined, fluid state of theimmediate setting of life-politics and human togetherness, call forthe rethinking of the concepts and cognitive frames used to narratehuman individual experience and their joint history.
This book is dedicated to this task. Bauman selects five of thebasic concepts which have served to make sense of shared human life- emancipation, individuality, time/space, work and community - andtraces their successive incarnations and changes of meaning.
Liquid Modernity concludes the analysis undertaken inBauman's two previous books Globalization: The HumanConsequences and In Search of Politics. Together thesevolumes form a brilliant analysis of the changing conditions ofsocial and political life by one of the most original thinkerswriting today.
1. Emancipation.
2. Individuality.
3. Time/Space.
4. Work.
5. Community.
Afterthoughts: On Writing; on Writing Sociology.
Notes.
Index.
Times Higher Education Supplement
"Liquid Modernity is Zygmunt Bauman's term for thepresent condition of the world as contrasted with the 'solid'modernity that preceded it ... He is a vivid and original writerwith an eye for the revealing personal experience.'
Dennis Wrong, Times Literary Supplement
"Zygmunt Bauman can be counted among those giants of sociology -C. Wright Mills, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber - who are boundtogether not by a shared ideological or disciplinary alignment, butby a profound and moral passion. I do not employ the term "moral"in the commonly used sense of "judgmental", but to describe theirability to define the spirit of the age, to ask cutting questionsabout society's direction, warn of dangers and perceiveopportunities."
Contemporary Politics
"These books mark an important advance in Bauman's project. Heseems to be trying to bring the intellectuals back into the game,twitting them for their passivity. Bauman wants social critics totake a more active role, taking a lead by showing how therelationships between individuals and society and between theprivate and public spheres may be rearticulated and the spirit ofthe agora restored to social and political life."
British Journal of Sociology
"His work is essential reading for those political theorist whofeel that part of their task is to elaborate relevant andcompelling normative critique."
Contemporary Political Theory
"Bauman lucidly depicts what others call the 'postmodernsituation' a term that he painstakingly avoids, and his analysis isimportant for anyone interested in cultural criticism"
Caterina Norlin-Brage, Religious StudiesReview
"One of post-modernity's great commentators."
Pete Ward, Church Times
