Product Description

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, has brought profound change to all aspects of the human condition. The new remoteness and un–reachability of global systemic structure coupled with the unstructured and under–defined, fluid state of the immediate setting of life–politics and human togetherness, call for the rethinking of the concepts and cognitive frames used to narrate human individual experience and their joint history.

This book is dedicated to this task. Bauman selects five of the basic concepts which have served to make sense of shared human life – emancipation, individuality, time/space, work and community – and traces their successive incarnations and changes of meaning.

Liquid Modernity concludes the analysis undertaken in Bauman′s two previous books Globalization: The Human Consequences and In Search of Politics. Together these volumes form a brilliant analysis of the changing conditions of social and political life by one of the most original thinkers writing today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #77500 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
"Bauman on a bad day is still far more stimulating than most contemporary social thinkers. He is the Georg Simmel of our age, and his books and essays will be read when contemporary exponents of social arithmetic are long forgotten."
Times Higher Education Supplement

"Liquid Modernity is Zygmunt Bauman′s term for the present condition of the world as contrasted with the ′solid′ modernity that preceded it ... He is a vivid and original writer with 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 bound together not by a shared ideological or disciplinary alignment, but by a profound and moral passion. I do not employ the term "moral" in the commonly used sense of "judgmental", but to describe their ability to define the spirit of the age, to ask cutting questions about society′s direction, warn of dangers and perceive opportunities."

Contemporary Politics

"These books mark an important advance in Bauman′s project. He seems to be trying to bring the intellectuals back into the game, twitting them for their passivity. Bauman wants social critics to take a more active role, taking a lead by showing how the relationships between individuals and society and between the private and public spheres may be rearticulated and the spirit of the agora restored to social and political life."

British Journal of Sociology

"His work is essential reading for those political theorist who feel that part of their task is to elaborate relevant and compelling normative critique."

Contemporary Political Theory

"Bauman lucidly depicts what others call the ′postmodern situation′ a term that he painstakingly avoids, and his analysis is important for anyone interested in cultural criticism"

Caterina Norlin–Brage, Religious Studies Review

"One of post–modernity′s great commentators."

Pete Ward, Church Times

From the Back Cover
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, has brought profound change to all aspects of the human condition. The new remoteness and un–reachability of global systemic structure coupled with the unstructured and under–defined, fluid state of the immediate setting of life–politics and human togetherness, call for the rethinking of the concepts and cognitive frames used to narrate human individual experience and their joint history.

This book is dedicated to this task. Bauman selects five of the basic concepts which have served to make sense of shared human life – emancipation, individuality, time/space, work and community – and traces their successive incarnations and changes of meaning.

Liquid Modernity concludes the analysis undertaken in Bauman′s two previous books Globalization: The Human Consequences and In Search of Politics. Together these volumes form a brilliant analysis of the changing conditions of social and political life by one of the most original thinkers writing today.

About the Author
Zygmunt Bauman is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Universities of Leeds and Warsaw.

Customer Reviews

Flexible modernity
This book explains the concepts of liquid modernity. modernity has changed from hard solid to liquid light as melting of the solids is the permanent feature of modrrnity.
According to Max Waber,liquid modernity means,liberating business enterprise from the shackles of the family,household duties and from the dense tissues of ethical obligations.
Book discusses the changes brought about in society in five basic
concepts 'emancipation','individuality',time-space,'work'
and'community'.
In society,free individuals has made the critique of reality.
According to Anthony Giddens,now a days we are engaged in life politics;we are reflexive being who look closely at every move we take,who are seldom satisfied with its results and always eager to correct it. we are more 'critially predisposed'.
In liquid modernity, self identification has destructive effect due to excess of opportunity.
Modernity starts when space and time are separated from living practice and from each other.The history of time began with modernity,modernity is the time when time has a history.
considering spatial expansion as game,space act as a stake,space as a value and time act as a tool.
In solid modernity,heavy capitalism is the engagement between capital and labour,massive factory walls enclosed and kept both partners in shared prison.whereas in liquid modernity,liquid capitalism,space matters little,they are all masters of art of 'labyrynthine living ' acceptance of disorientation readiness.

In community aspect, there is fragility of human bond. There is deepening imbalance between individual freedom and security.
At last liquidising powers have moved from system to society,
from politics to life policies,from macro to micro level.

Flexible modernity
This book explains the concepts of liquid modernity. modernity has changed from hard solid to liquid light as melting of the solids is the permanent feature of modrrnity.
According to Max Waber,liquid modernity means,liberating business enterprise from the shackles of the family,household duties and from the dense tissues of ethical obligations.
Book discusses the changes brought about in society in five basic
concepts 'emancipation','individuality',time-space,'work'
and'community'.
In society,free individuals has made the critique of reality.
According to Anthony Giddens,now a days we are engaged in life politics;we are reflexive being who look closely at every move we take,who are seldom satisfied with its results and always eager to correct it. we are more 'critially predisposed'.
In liquid modernity, self identification has destructive effect due to excess of opportunity.
Modernity starts when space and time are separated from living practice and from each other.The history of time began with modernity,modernity is the time when time has a history.
considering spatial expansion as game,space act as a stake,space as a value and time act as a tool.
In solid modernity,heavy capitalism is the engagement between capital and labour,massive factory walls enclosed and kept both partners in shared prison.whereas in liquid modernity,liquid capitalism,space matters little,they are all masters of art of 'labyrynthine living ' acceptance of disorientation readiness.

In community aspect, there is fragility of human bond. There is deepening imbalance between individual freedom and security.
At last liquidising powers have moved from system to society,
from politics to life policies,from macro to micro level.