Zygmunt Bauman – författare

Ett modernt folkmord är inte ett uttryck för massans spontana aggressivitet. Det ingår som ett välplanerat medel i den sociala ingenjörskonst som använder sig av en rationell teknik för att nå irrationella mål. I sitt uppmärksammade och prisbelönta arbete visar Zygmunt Bauman att moderniteten var en nödvändig förutsättning för Förintelsen. Men "Auschwitz och det moderna samhället" är inte bara en av de mest genomträngande analyserna av detta mörka kapitel i Europas historia. Genom att visa hur de mekanismer som gjorde Förintelsen möjlig fortfarande är verksamma i dag utgör Baumans studie också en skrämmande diagnos av vårt moderna samhälle. Zygmunt Bauman är professor emeritus i sociologi vid Leeds Universitet och har på svenska publicerat bl.a. "Döden och odöd­ligheten i det moderna samhället". ”Detta är en alldeles lysande bok och jag kan varmt rekom­mendera den till läsning.” /Peter Englund ”… en intellektuell njutning att läsa ett så gediget och genom­reflekterat arbete” /Håkan Arvidsson, Judisk Krönika ”Men om Auschwitz var ett uttryck för det moderna samhällets latenta möjligheter kan vi med rätta hysa fruktan för att det kan upprepas – om vi inte inser detta, och därav drar slutsatsen att vårt samhälle måste genomgå djupgående förändringar för att förhindra att det sker igen.” /Joachim Israel, Dagens Nyheter

Zygmunt Bauman har energiskt utforskat olika sidor av vårt samtida sociala ich kulturella liv, som han karaktäriserar som "flytande". Relationer, identiteter, och institutioner befinner sig i en ständig förvandling. Det skapas hela tiden nya möjlighter, men också nya faror. Här är det konsumtionslivet Bauman tar sig an. Konsumtion är i sig något flyktigt och våra dagars konsumtionssamhälle är ett tillstånd av evig otillfredsställelse, där den ena frestande nyheten jagar den andra i halsbrytande fart. Tiden får en, som Bauman säger, "pointillistisk" karaktär, den blir en punkt- eller ögonblickstid. Konsumtionssamhällets kultur är en "nukultur". Poängen med Bauman är inte att han levererar aha-upplevelser. Han trycker envist på något som vi innerst inne är medvetna om, men inte vill eller vågar erkänna: att vi långtifrån är så fria som vi inbillar oss... Med ockuperade sinnen sjunger vi ockupantens lov. /Nils Schwartz i Expressen Baumans analys av konsumtionslivet är klockren, stringent - och pessimistisk. /P O i Västerbottens-Kuriren Med Konsumtionsliv visar Bauman att han hör till en av de mest framsynta tänkarna i vår samtid. Boken är kort, skarp och kritisk. /Mikael R Karlsson I Borås Tidning

Hur långt räcker de traditionella åtgärderna när det gäller att bekämpa den nya fattigdom som i dag breder ut sig i västvärlden? Finns det nya, oväntade lösningar på detta växande problem? Dessa frågor står i centrum för Arbete, konsumtion och den nya fattigdomen. Zygmunt Bauman spårar den förändring som ägt rum i synen på arbetet under den moderna historien och vilka konsekvenser denna fått. Han undersöker vidare i vilken utsträckning de beprövade sätten att bekämpa den framväxande fattigdomen ännu är tillämpliga. I modernitetens gryning hoppades man kunna locka de fattiga till fast och regelbundet arbete i fabrikerna, utrota fattigdomen och säkra den sociala freden ? allt på en gång. I praktiken tjänade den moderna arbetsmoralen till att fostra och disciplinera människor. Bauman beskriver hur detta gradvis har förändrats. Moderniteten har utvecklats från ett »samhälle av producenter» till ett »samhälle av konsumenter». Arbetsetiken har ersatts av konsumtionsestetiken. Arbete, konsumtion och den nya fattigdomen mynnar ut i en plädering för ett radikalt åtskiljande mellan den enskilde individens »berättigande till en summa pengar» och »den faktiska förmågan att tjäna pengar». Genom att omvandla socialförsäkringssystemen enligt dessa principer är det möjligt, menar Bauman, att föra över välfärdsstatliga värden som frihet, jämlikhet och social rättvisa till den utvecklingsfas som de kapitalistiska staterna nu har trätt in i, en fas där målet full sysselsättning har försvunnit bortom det genomförbaras och önskvärdas horisont.

We have long since lost our faith in the idea that human beings could achieve human happiness in some future ideal state—a state that Thomas More, writing five centuries ago, tied to a topos, a fixed place, a land, an island, a sovereign state under a wise and benevolent ruler. But while we have lost our faith in utopias of all hues, the human aspiration that made this vision so compelling has not died. Instead it is re-emerging today as a vision focused not on the future but on the past, not on a future-to-be-created but on an abandoned and undead past that we could call retrotopia.The emergence of retrotopia is interwoven with the deepening gulf between power and politics that is a defining feature of our contemporary liquid-modern world—the gulf between the ability to get things done and the capability of deciding what things need to be done, a capability once vested with the territorially sovereign state. This deepening gulf has rendered nation-states unable to deliver on their promises, giving rise to a widespread disenchantment with the idea that the future will improve the human condition and a mistrust in the ability of nation-states to make this happen. True to the utopian spirit, retrotopia derives its stimulus from the urge to rectify the failings of the present human condition—though now by resurrecting the failed and forgotten potentials of the past. Imagined aspects of the past, genuine or putative, serve as the main landmarks today in drawing the road-map to a better world. Having lost all faith in the idea of building an alternative society of the future, many turn instead to the grand ideas of the past, buried but not yet dead. Such is retrotopia, the contours of which are examined by Zygmunt Bauman in this sharp dissection of our contemporary romance with the past.

Sociology is concerned with modern society, but has never come to terms with one of the most distinctive and horrific aspects of modernity - the Holocaust. The book examines what sociology can teach us about the Holocaust, but more particularly concentrates upon the lessons which the Holocaust has for sociology. Bauman's work demonstrates that the Holocaust has to be understood as deeply involved with the nature of modernity. There is nothing comparable to this work available in the sociological literature.

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.Also available as an audiobook.

In our individualized society we are all artists of life – whether we know it or not, will it or not and like it or not, by decree of society if not by our own choice. In this society we are all expected, rightly or wrongly, to give our lives purpose and form by using our own skills and resources, even if we lack the tools and materials with which artists' studios need to be equipped for the artist's work to be conceived and executed. And we are praised or censured for the results – for what we have managed or failed to accomplish and for what we have achieved and lost.In our liquid modern society we are also taught to believe that the purpose of the art of life should be and can be happiness – though it's not clear what happiness is, the images of a happy state keep changing and the state of happiness remains most of the time something yet-to-be-reached.This new book by Zygmunt Bauman – one of the most original and influential social thinkers writing today – is not a book of designs for the art of life nor a 'how to' book: the construction of a design for life and the way it is pursued is and cannot but be an individual responsibility and individual accomplishment. It is instead a brilliant account of conditions under which our designs-for-life are chosen, of the constraints that might be imposed on their choice and of the interplay of design, accident and character that shape their implementation. Last but not least, it is a study of the ways in which our society – the liquid modern, individualized society of consumers – influences (but does not determine) the way we construct and narrate our life trajectories.

"Baumans postmodernitet har inget att göra med estetisk diskussion. Det är i första hand ett sociologiskt, moraliskt och politiskfilosofiskt begrepp. Om moderniteten betecknar viljan och tron på att livet kan kontrolleras och administreras utifrån rationella kalkyler, så är postmoderniteten just sammanbrottet för dessa slags visioner. Men med sammanbrottet för den rationalistiska samhällsutopin följer också sammanbrottet för tron på en enhetlig moral och idé om det goda livet. Det postmoderna tillståndet kännetecknas av splittring och tvetydighet. Här står vi utan ledstjärnor, överlämnade till oss själva i en aldrig tidigare skådad utsträckning. ? I vissa av essäerna kan man få intrycket att detta är något som Bauman bejakar och hyllar. Äntligen har mänskligheten gjort sig av med sin skräck för det avvikande och tillfälliga. Äntligen står vi i beredskap att fullt ut bejaka livets kaotiska sidor, istället för att på varje punkt försöka bemästra det med våld. Men samtidigt avtecknar sig konturerna av en djupgående moralisk kris. Den ofta åberopade »adiaforiseringen» (ung. likgiltiggörande) som präglar det moderna livet, som gör det möjligt för individer att utan moraliskt ansvar administrera och bevittna de mest vedervärdiga grymheter, kvarstår efter samhällsutopiernas kollaps. Därför krävs nu en ny typ av individuell moralisk besinning. ? Ett återkommande tema i den senaste boken är också de faror som hotar i den nya ovisshetens tidsålder. I takt med att nationalstaterna nedmonteras genom inre kritik och genom avyttring av politiskt ansvar uppstår ett identitetsvakuum som snabbt fylls igen av stamtillhörighetens profeter." /Hans Ruin, DN

This liquid modern world of ours, like all liquids, cannot stand still and keep its shape for long. Everything keeps changing - the fashions we follow, the events that intermittently catch our attention, the things we dream of and things we fear. And we, the inhabitants of this world in flux, feel the need to adjust to its tempo by being ‘flexible' and constantly ready to change. We want to know what is going on and what is likely to happen, but what we get is an avalanche of information that threatens to overwhelm us. How are we to sift the information that really matters from the heaps of useless and irrelevant rubbish? How are we to derive meaningful messages from senseless noise?We face the daunting task of trying to distinguish the important from the insubstantial, distil the things that matter from false alarms and flashes in the pan. Nothing escapes scrutiny so stubbornly as the ordinary things of everyday life, hiding in the light of deceptive and misleading familiarity. To turn them into objects of attention and scrutiny, they must first be torn out from that daily routine: the apparently familiar must be made strange. This is precisely what Zygmunt Bauman seeks to do in these 44 letters: each tells a story drawn from ordinary lives, but tells it in order to reveal an extraordinariness that we might otherwise overlook.Arresting, revealing, disconcerting, these snapshots of life by the most brilliant analyst of our liquid modern world will appeal to a wide readership.

Det verkliga ämnet för denna undersökning är det postmoderna perspektivet självt. Bokens huvudpåstående är att vår moderna tid har nått ett så självkritiskt, ofta självförringande och på många sätt självförgörande stadium (den process som begreppet »postmodernitet» är tänkt att begripa och förmedla) att många av de vägar som etiska teorier (men inte vår tids moraliska intressen) tidigare följt mer började framstå som en återvändsgränd; däremot öppnades möjligheter för en radikalt ny förståelse av moraliska problem. ...

The book discusses the role of intellectuals in the modern world. Bauman connects this with current analyses of modernity and post-modernity. The theme of the book is that the tasks of intellectuals change from being 'legislators' to 'interpreters' with the transition from modernity to post-modernity.The book discusses the role of intellectuals in the modern world. Bauman connects this with current analyses of modernity and post-modernity. The theme of the book is that the tasks of intellectuals change from being 'legislators' to 'interpreters' with the transition from modernity to post-modernity.

What is the role of education in a world where we no longer have a clear vision of the future and where the idea of a single, universal model of humanity seems like the residue of a bygone age? What role should educators play in a world where young people find themselves faced with deep uncertainty about their future, where the prospects of securing a stable, long-term career seem increasingly remote and where intensified population movements have created more diverse communities in which different cultures find themselves living side by side, no longer bound together by the belief that the other would eventually be assimilated into ‘our' culture? Faced with the bewildering features of our liquid modern world, many young people are inclined to withdraw - in some cases into the online world of games and virtual relationships, in other cases into anorexia, depression, alcohol or even drug abuse, hoping to find shelter from a world perceived as more and more dangerous. Others launch into more violent forms of behaviour, like street gangs and the looting carried out by young people who have been excluded from the temples of consumption but are eager to participate in the ceremony. And all this happens while our politicians look on, uncomprehending and indifferent.In this short book Zygmunt Bauman - the leading social theorist of our liquid modern world, here in conversation with Riccardo Mazzeo - reflects on the predicament of young people today and on the role of education and the educator in a world where the certainties of our predecessors can no longer be taken for granted.

In this new book Zygmunt Bauman and Riccardo Mazzeo examine the contentious issue of the relation between literature (and the arts in general) and sociology (or, more generally, a branch of the humanities claiming scientific status). While many commentators see literature and sociology as radically different vocations, Bauman and Mazzeo argue that they are bound together by a common purpose and a shared subject matter. Despite the many differences in terms of their methods and their ways of presenting their findings, novels and sociological texts are not at cross-purposes. Indeed, it is precisely their differences that make them at once indispensable to each other and mutually complementary.The writers of novels and of sociological texts may explore their world from different perspectives, seeking and producing different types of ‘data’, but their products bear the unmistakable marks of their shared origin. They feed each other and depend on each other in terms of their agenda, their discoveries and the contents of their messages. In a world characterized by the continuous search for new sensations and the fetishism of consumption, they bring fundamental existential questions back to the public agenda. Literature and sociology reveal the truth of the human condition only when they stay in one another's company, remaining attentive to each other's findings and engaged in a continuous dialogue. For only together can they rise to the challenging task of untangling and laying bare the complex intertwining of biography and history as well as of individual and society that totality we are constantly shaping while being shaped by it.

The word "globalization" is used to convey the hope and determination of order-making on a worldwide scale. It is trumpeted as providing more mobility-of people, capital, and information-and as being equally beneficial for everyone. With recent technological developments-most notably the Internet-globalization seems to be the fate of the world. But no one seems to be in control. As noted sociologist Zygmunt Bauman shows in this detailed history of globalization, while human affairs now take place on a global scale, we are not able to direct events; we can only watch as boundaries, institutions, and loyalties shift in rapid and unpredictable ways. Who benefits from the new globalization? Are people in need assisted more quickly and efficiently? Or are the poor worse off than ever before? Will a globalized economy shift jobs away from traditional areas, destroying time-honored national industries? Who will enjoy access to jobs in the new hierarchy of mobility?From the way the global economy creates a class of absentee landlords to current prison designs for the criminalized underclass, Bauman dissects globalization in all its manifestations: its effects on the economy, politics, social structures, and even our perceptions of time and space. In a chilling analysis, Bauman argues that globalization divides as much as it unites, creating an ever-widening gulf between the haves and the have-nots. Rather than the hybrid culture we had hoped for, globalization is creating a more homogenous world. Drawing on the works of philosophers, social historians, architects, and theoreticians such as Michel Foucault, Claude Levi-Strauss, Alfred J. Dunlap, and Le Corbusier, Globalization presents a historical overview of the methods employed to create and define human spaces and institutions, from rural villages to sprawling urban centers. Bauman shows how the advent of the computer translates into the decline of truly public space. And he explores the dimensions of a world in which-through new technologies-time is accelerated and space is compressed, revealing how we have arrived at our current state of global thinking.Bauman's incisive methods of inquiry make Globalization an excellent antidote to the exuberance expressed by those who stand to benefit from the new pace and mobility of the modern life.

Reviewers’ comments on the first edition

“Zygmunt Bauman presents a cogently argued and compelling thesis... an important book from a distinguished scholar, that adds a new dimension to the poverty debate.”British Journal of Sociology

“It will be of great interest and value to students, teachers and researchers in sociology and social policy… [Bauman] provides a very forceful and sophisticated statement of the case; and a very well written one too. As a wide ranging analysis of our present discontents it is an admirable example of the sort of challenge which sociology at its best can offer to us and our fellow citizens to re-assess and re-think our current social arrangements.”Work, Employment and Society

“This is a stylish and persuasive analysis of the transition between the age of the ‘society of producers’ to that of the ‘society of consumers’.”Political Studies

It is one thing to be poor in a society of producers and universal employment; it is quite a different thing to be poor in a society of consumers, in which life projects are built around consumer choices rather than on work, professional skills or jobs. Where ‘being poor’ was once linked to being unemployed, today it draws its meaning primarily from the plight of a flawed consumer. This has a significant effect on the way living in poverty is experienced and on the prospects for redeeming its misery.

Work, Consumerism and the New Poor traces this change over the duration of modern history. It makes an inventory of its social consequences, and considers how effective different ways of fighting poverty and relieving its hardships are.

The new edition of this seminal work features:

Updated coverage of key thinkers in the fieldDiscussion of recent work on redundancy, disposability and exclusionCurrent thinking on the effects of capital flows on different countries and the changes on the shop floor through, for example, business process re-engineering New material on security and vulnerabilityKey reading for students and lecturers in sociology, politics and social policy, and those with an interest in contemporary social issues.

Reviewers’ comments on the first edition

“Zygmunt Bauman presents a cogently argued and compelling thesis... an important book from a distinguished scholar, that adds a new dimension to the poverty debate.”British Journal of Sociology

“It will be of great interest and value to students, teachers and researchers in sociology and social policy… [Bauman] provides a very forceful and sophisticated statement of the case; and a very well written one too. As a wide ranging analysis of our present discontents it is an admirable example of the sort of challenge which sociology at its best can offer to us and our fellow citizens to re-assess and re-think our current social arrangements.”Work, Employment and Society

“This is a stylish and persuasive analysis of the transition between the age of the ‘society of producers’ to that of the ‘society of consumers’.”Political Studies

It is one thing to be poor in a society of producers and universal employment; it is quite a different thing to be poor in a society of consumers, in which life projects are built around consumer choices rather than on work, professional skills or jobs. Where ‘being poor’ was once linked to being unemployed, today it draws its meaning primarily from the plight of a flawed consumer. This has a significant effect on the way living in poverty is experienced and on the prospects for redeeming its misery.

Work, Consumerism and the New Poor traces this change over the duration of modern history. It makes an inventory of its social consequences, and considers how effective different ways of fighting poverty and relieving its hardships are.

The new edition of this seminal work features:

Updated coverage of key thinkers in the fieldDiscussion of recent work on redundancy, disposability and exclusionCurrent thinking on the effects of capital flows on different countries and the changes on the shop floor through, for example, business process re-engineering New material on security and vulnerabilityKey reading for students and lecturers in sociology, politics and social policy, and those with an interest in contemporary social issues.

Education and Intercultural Identity offers a dialogue between influential authors Zygmunt Bauman and Agostino Portera that reflects on and discusses contemporary events and issues relating to the crisis of global normativity, education and intercultural identity. Centered around a previously unpublished dialogue between Bauman and Portera, the book contains an extended introduction by Riccardo Mazzeo that traces key themes in the dialogue and highlights the importance of education in our globalized world. The book highlights that intercultural and multicultural education is the best developed model to meet modern day challenges that include religious pluralism, pollution, and conflict. It also contains timely material relating to significant issues affecting society today; including the refugee crisis, rising authoritarian nationalism, and the risks and challenges of globalisation and sustainability. This book will be of great interest for academics, scholars and students in the fields of intercultural education, sociology and the sociology of education.

Education and Intercultural Identity offers a dialogue between influential authors Zygmunt Bauman and Agostino Portera that reflects on and discusses contemporary events and issues relating to the crisis of global normativity, education and intercultural identity. Centered around a previously unpublished dialogue between Bauman and Portera, the book contains an extended introduction by Riccardo Mazzeo that traces key themes in the dialogue and highlights the importance of education in our globalized world. The book highlights that intercultural and multicultural education is the best developed model to meet modern day challenges that include religious pluralism, pollution, and conflict. It also contains timely material relating to significant issues affecting society today; including the refugee crisis, rising authoritarian nationalism, and the risks and challenges of globalisation and sustainability. This book will be of great interest for academics, scholars and students in the fields of intercultural education, sociology and the sociology of education.

This thoughtful and illuminating book provides a major statement on the meaning and importance of postmodernity.

First published in 1982, Professor Bauman’s discussion of the mechanism of class formation and institutionalisation of class conflict argues that our understanding of changes in social and political structure has been hindered by the freezing of concepts of class in the ice-age of industrial society. He investigates the impact of historical memory on the early transformation of rank into a class society, and on the current confusion in the analysis of the ‘crisis of late-industrial society’.The book traces the formation of a class society back to the patterns of ‘surveillance power’ and control, and shows how these patterns preceded and made possible the industrial system. Subsequently ‘economised’ into the industrial system, these same patterns of control have now proved to be inadequate under social conditions brought about by this economisation of the power conflict.

Rather than contributing to the long-standing discussion about the characteristics of the society that socialism proposes to establish, this Routledge Revival, initially published in 1976, aims to explore the impact of the ‘living utopia’ of socialism on the development of modern society. It begins with an analysis of the role of utopia in general, and of the socialist utopia in particular; Bauman considers the opposition between ‘utopian’ and ‘scientific’ social thought; He presents socialism as the ‘counter-culture’ of capitalist society; The book finally examines the reasons for the failure of socialism in its application to the peasant revolution in Russia. It then explores some possible forms that the socialist utopia might take in the industrial societies of the late twentieth century. Professor Bauman writes for those who want to understand the logic of the historical fate of socialism in the present century, who are concerned about the validity and vitality of socialist ideas on the development of modern society, and who are interested, and perhaps confused, by the cultural and ideological conflicts of the last few decades.

For the better part of its history sociology shared with commonsense its assumption of the ‘nature-like’ character of society – and consequently developed as the science of unfreedom. In this powerful and engaging work, first published in 1976, Professor Bauman outlines the historical roots of such a science and describes how the new trends in sociology emerging from phenomenology and existentialism do not challenge this preoccupation. Rather, he claims, they deepen and extend it by stressing the key role of commonsense, particularly the ways in which it is sustained and embedded in the routines and assumptions of everyday life. Professor Bauman sets out the form of a critical sociology, based on emancipatory reason. His main concerns are the `validity' of commonsense and the truth of a theory which would resolve to transcend the limitations of commonsensical evidence. Aimed at human liberation A Critical Sociology is designed to question the very same routines and assumptions of everyday life informed by commonsense.

First published in 1982, Professor Bauman’s discussion of the mechanism of class formation and institutionalisation of class conflict argues that our understanding of changes in social and political structure has been hindered by the freezing of concepts of class in the ice-age of industrial society. He investigates the impact of historical memory on the early transformation of rank into a class society, and on the current confusion in the analysis of the ‘crisis of late-industrial society’.The book traces the formation of a class society back to the patterns of ‘surveillance power’ and control, and shows how these patterns preceded and made possible the industrial system. Subsequently ‘economised’ into the industrial system, these same patterns of control have now proved to be inadequate under social conditions brought about by this economisation of the power conflict.

Rather than contributing to the long-standing discussion about the characteristics of the society that socialism proposes to establish, this Routledge Revival, initially published in 1976, aims to explore the impact of the ‘living utopia’ of socialism on the development of modern society. It begins with an analysis of the role of utopia in general, and of the socialist utopia in particular; Bauman considers the opposition between ‘utopian’ and ‘scientific’ social thought; He presents socialism as the ‘counter-culture’ of capitalist society; The book finally examines the reasons for the failure of socialism in its application to the peasant revolution in Russia. It then explores some possible forms that the socialist utopia might take in the industrial societies of the late twentieth century. Professor Bauman writes for those who want to understand the logic of the historical fate of socialism in the present century, who are concerned about the validity and vitality of socialist ideas on the development of modern society, and who are interested, and perhaps confused, by the cultural and ideological conflicts of the last few decades.

For the better part of its history sociology shared with commonsense its assumption of the ‘nature-like’ character of society – and consequently developed as the science of unfreedom. In this powerful and engaging work, first published in 1976, Professor Bauman outlines the historical roots of such a science and describes how the new trends in sociology emerging from phenomenology and existentialism do not challenge this preoccupation. Rather, he claims, they deepen and extend it by stressing the key role of commonsense, particularly the ways in which it is sustained and embedded in the routines and assumptions of everyday life.

Originally published in 1978, this important work, by one of the leading European social theorists, is arguably the best introduction to the hermeneutic tradition as a whole. It is designed to help students of sociology and philosophy place the problems of "understanding social science" in their historical and philosophical context. It does so by presenting the major current in sociological thought as responses to the challenge of hermeneutics. The idea that true knowledge of social life can be attained only if human conduct is seen as meaningful action whose meaning is accordingly grasped has been presented as a discovery of recent sociology. In fact its history is long and its connections plentiful, reaching beyond the boundaries of sociology itself. Yet it is in sociology that the hermeneutic tradition has attracted most interest but most misinterpretation. The debate is in full swing and there is no attempt to offer "correct" solutions - the emphasis instead is upon revealing the strengths and weaknesses of each of the main approaches. However it is Bauman's view that the theory of understanding may achieve valid results only if it treats the problem of understanding as an aspect of the ongoing process of social life.

Originally in 1978, this important work, by one of the leading European social theorists, is arguably the best introduction to the hermeneutic tradition as a whole. It is designed to help students of sociology and philosophy place the problems of "understanding social science" in their historical and philosophical context. It does so by presenting the major current in sociological thought as responses to the challenge of hermeneutics. The idea that true knowledge of social life can be attained only if human conduct is seen as meaningful action whose meaning is accordingly grasped has been presented as a discovery of recent sociology. In fact its history is long and its connections plentiful, reaching beyond the boundaries of sociology itself. Yet it is in sociology that the hermeneutic tradition has attracted most interest but most misinterpretation. The debate is in full swing and there is no attempt to offer "correct" solutions - the emphasis instead is upon revealing the strengths and weaknesses of each of the main approaches. However it is Bauman's view that the theory of understanding may achieve valid results only if it treats the problem of understanding as an aspect of the ongoing process of social life.

Zygmunt Bauman's powerful and persuasive study of the postmodern perspective on ethics is particularly welcome. For Bauman the great issues of ethics have lost none of their topicality: they simply need to be seen, and dealt with, in a wholly new way. Our era, he suggests, may actually represent a dawning, rather than a twilight, for ethics.