Individualization

Ulrich Beck is Professor of Sociology at the University of Munich. He is the author of Counterpoison (1991) and Ecological Enlightenment (1992).

`Ulrich Beck′s Risk Society, and indeed the theory of "reflexive modernization" is characterized by two theses: an environmental thesis and individualization thesis.... In Anglo-Saxon sociology the risk thesis has been enormously influential. The individualization thesis, for its part, has passed virtually ignored. That is the shortcoming that this book Individualization addressess.... In this single volume this thesis receives the exclusive attention of Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim. This book represents the other half of Beck′s work. And this half today may be the most important half′ - Scott Lash, from the Foreword

• Losing the TraditionalIndividualization and ′Precarious Freedoms′A Life of One′s Own in a Runaway WorldIndividualization, Globalization and PoliticsBeyond Status and Class?The Ambivalent Social StructurePoverty and Wealth in a ′Self-Driven Culture′From `Living for Others′ to ′A Life of One′s Own′Individualization and WomenOn the Way to the Post-Familial FamilyFrom a Community of Need to Elective AffinitiesDivision of Labour, Self-Imaging and Life ProjectsNew Conflicts in the FamilyDeclining Birthrates and the Wish to Have ChildrenApparatuses Do Not Care for PeopleHealth and Responsibility in the Age of Genetic TechnologyDeath of One′s Own, Life of One′s OwnHopes from TransienceFreedom′s ChildrenFreedom′s FathersZombie CategoriesInterview with Ulrich Beck