Ulrich Beck is Professor of Sociology at the University of Munich

"Another chef d'oeuvre from Beck - simultaneously a bold overview and a most detailed map of the world we have made and are made by. And the fullest to-date presentation of the idea of "second modernity": that of the pressures to rationalize the effects of rationalization which will dominate our individual and collective concerns and efforts for the years to come. A supreme exercise in restoring to view the lost link between biography and history, individual life and its global setting: an essential reading for everyone trying to see form and logic in the increasingly confused and shapeless experience." Zygmunt Bauman, University of Leeds "The state without enemies is a step already on the way to the global risk society of what Beck calls our "second modernity". This book has raised - among scholars and politicians - considerable controversy in Germany, and will no doubt do so in the English-speaking world." Scott Lash, Lancaster University

• 1. Freedom's Children. 2. What Comes After Postmodernity: The Conflict of Two Modernities.3. The Withering Away of Solidarity: Places without Community and Communities without Places.4. Perspectives on a Cultural Evolution of Work.5. Capitalism without Work, or the Coming of Civil Society.6. The Democratization of the Family, or the Unknown Art of Free Association.7. Misunderstanding Reflexivity: the Controversy on Reflexive Modernization.8. The Renaissance of Politics in Reflexive Modernity: Politicians Must Make a Response.9. The Open City: Architecture in Reflexive Modernity.10. How Neighbours Become Jews: the Political Construction of the Stranger in the Age of Reflexive Modernity.11. Nation-States without Enemies: the Military and Democracy after the End of the Cold War.12. Brief Introduction to Environmental Machiavellianism: Green Democracy from Below.13. Freedom or Survival: the Utopia of Self-Limitation.Notes.References.Index.

Ulrich Beck is Professor of Sociology at the University of Munich

"Another chef d'oeuvre from Beck - simultaneously a bold overview and a most detailed map of the world we have made and are made by. And the fullest to-date presentation of the idea of "second modernity": that of the pressures to rationalize the effects of rationalization which will dominate our individual and collective concerns and efforts for the years to come. A supreme exercise in restoring to view the lost link between biography and history, individual life and its global setting: an essential reading for everyone trying to see form and logic in the increasingly confused and shapeless experience." Zygmunt Bauman, University of Leeds "The state without enemies is a step already on the way to the global risk society of what Beck calls our "second modernity". This book has raised - among scholars and politicians - considerable controversy in Germany, and will no doubt do so in the English-speaking world." Scott Lash, Lancaster University

• 1. Freedom's Children. 2. What Comes After Postmodernity: The Conflict of Two Modernities.3. The Withering Away of Solidarity: Places without Community and Communities without Places.4. Perspectives on a Cultural Evolution of Work.5. Capitalism without Work, or the Coming of Civil Society.6. The Democratization of the Family, or the Unknown Art of Free Association.7. Misunderstanding Reflexivity: the Controversy on Reflexive Modernization.8. The Renaissance of Politics in Reflexive Modernity: Politicians Must Make a Response.9. The Open City: Architecture in Reflexive Modernity.10. How Neighbours Become Jews: the Political Construction of the Stranger in the Age of Reflexive Modernity.11. Nation-States without Enemies: the Military and Democracy after the End of the Cold War.12. Brief Introduction to Environmental Machiavellianism: Green Democracy from Below.13. Freedom or Survival: the Utopia of Self-Limitation.Notes.References.Index.