The Transformation of Intimacy by Anthony Giddens | Goodreads

The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies by Anthony Giddens | Goodreads

The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies

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The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies

by Anthony Giddens

 3.73  ·   Rating details ·  383 ratings  ·  19 reviews

The sexual revolution: an evocative term, but what meaning can be given to it today? How does “sexuality” come into being, and what connections does it have with the changes that have affected personal life more generally? In answering these questions, the author disputes many of the dominant interpretations of the role of sexuality in modern culture.

The author suggests that the revolutionary changes in which sexuality has become cauth up are more long-term than generally conceded. He sees them as intrinsic to the development of modern societies as a whole and to the broad characteristics of that development. Sexuality as we know it today is a creation of modernity, a terrain upon which the contradictory tendencies of modern social life play themselves out in full. Emancipation and oppression, opportunity and risk—these have become a part of a heady mix that irresistably ties our individual lives to global outcomes and the transformation of intimacy.

We live today in a social order in which, for the first time in histroy, women are becoming equal to men—or at least have lodged a claim to such equality as their right. The author does not attempt to analyze the gender inequalities that persist in the economic or political domains, but instead concentrates on a more hisdden personal area in which women—ordinary women, in the course of their day-to-day lives, quite apart from any political agenda—have pioneered changes of greate, and generalizable, importance. These changes essentially concern an exploration of the potentialities of the “pure relationship,” a relaitonship that presumes sexual and emotional equality, and is explosive in its connotations for pre-existing relations of power.

The author analyzes the emergence of what he calls plastic sexuality—sexuality freed from its intrinsic relation to reproduction—in terms of the emotional emancipation implicit in the pure relationship, as well as women’s claim to sexual pleasure. Plastic sexuality is decentered sexuality, freed from both reproduction and subservience to a fixed object. It can be molded as a trait of personality, and thus become bound up with the reflexivity of the self. Premised on plastic sexuality, the pure relationship is not exclusively heterosexual; it is neutral in terms of sexual orientation.

The author speculates that the transformaion of intimacy might be a subversive influence on modern institutions as a whole, for a social world in which the dominant ideal was to achieve intinsic rewards from the company of others might be vastly different from that which we know at the present. (less)

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Paperback, 216 pages

Published October 1st 1993 by Stanford University Press (first published 1992)

Original TitleThe Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies

ISBN0804722145 (ISBN13: 9780804722148)

Edition LanguageEnglish

Other Editions (26)

Mahremiyetin Dönüşümü: Modern Toplumlarda Cinsellik, Aşk ve Erotizm 

La transformación de la intimidad: sexualidad, amor y erotismo en las Sociedades Modernas 

Transformation of Intimacy: Seksualitas, Cinta dan Erotisme dalam Masyarakat Modern 

A Transformação da Intimidade: Sexualidade, Amor e Erotismo nas Sociedades Modernas 

La trasformazione dell'intimità: Sessualità, amore ed erotismo nelle società moderne

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 Average rating3.73  ·  Rating details ·  383 ratings  ·  19 reviews

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Therese

Jul 07, 2020Therese rated it really liked it

Shelves: research-authoritarianism, dating-and-relationships, politics-and-society, philosophy, psychology, womens-issues

This is a sociologist's perspective on how concepts of intimacy and relationships have changed since the sexual revolution of the 1960s. I was interested in it because I'm trying to understand authoritarianism at both the political and personal level, and part of my thinking is that there is a relationship between authoritarian attitudes and intimacy, since authoritarianism revolves around control, and controlling another person is arguably a form of intimacy, in which there's a breaking down of barriers between two wills to enable the intrusion of one will into another.

I think it was Giddens who first introduced the concept of "pure relationships" in sociology. This refers to consensual relationships people have just for the sake of their own happiness and fulfillment, which they can leave at will. Giddens idea is that such relationships have become more common and more of an ideal since the sexual revolution, particularly for women and GLBTQ folks. The idea of the pure relationship differs from e.g. traditional marriage, which was more of a practical economic arrangement, or the notion of romantic love or sexual license that was driven by emotional or physical compulsion. A lot of people have struggled with this shift, for example, straight men and women in cases where the women have moved away from ideals of chastity and see sex as a prelude to an egalitarian relationship, but where the men don't want commitment and just want sex.

I mostly skimmed the chapters in the beginning and middle, because even though Giddens was doing important work by putting into words a lot of the changes that had been wrought by modernity, viewed from today's perspective it didn't feel very new or surprising to me. Where things got interesting was the last two chapters, where he discusses ideas from the philosopher Wilhelm Reich about repression and from Herbert Marcuse about "eros and civilization." (I haven't read Reich or Marcuse, so can't judge how accurately Giddens represents their thinking, but found the ideas interesting.) Reich was against bourgeois marriage as a repressive, authoritarian institution. He believed that traditional monogamous marriage served to develop authoritarian traits of character, which in turn supported an exploitative social system. Despite Reich's reputation as a wackadoodle crackpot, there's clearly some truth to this.

Marcuse's idea was that sexual emancipation should not be considered the same thing as just hedonism. Sexual love becomes liberating in combination with respect for the other as an equal, which disrupts the old traditional patriarchalist (authoritarian) family structure and also paves the way for broader egalitarian social citizenship. However, when sexual permissiveness turns into objectifying others as commodities of pleasure, it becomes just another form of oppressiveness.

In the last chapter of the book, Giddens expands on these ideas to talk about how egalitarian relationships between people can both follow a model of democracy at the personal level and reinforce egalitarian democracy at the political level. For me, this all goes toward showing how humanist ethics is foundational for democracy and how healthy interpersonal relationships based on mutual respect model healthy democracy as a system of governance. This contrasts with domestic abuse and violence, which models authoritarian governance - a point also made in a book I read about the mindset of domestic abusers, Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men. The latter book was written by a clinical psychologist who had spent decades working with abusers, and has an insightful chapter where the author argues that the mindset of abusers is also reflected in systems of social and political oppression.

Giddens's book can also be considered in combination with another book I panned in a review a while back, Mark Regnerus's Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy. Regnerus, as I pointed out, reveals himself as anti-individualist and authoritarian in his thinking, and his book revolves around contrasting Giddens's idea of the pure relationship with the "exchange" model of relationships - the more traditional idea of marriage as economic exchange. Regnerus loves the exchange model, is clearly nostalgic for the days when people could be said to "own" each other, and can't seem to get out of the dehumanizing idea of human beings as useful goods; Regnerus argues (obliquely, not directly) that the pure relationship model inevitably devolves into this commoditization of sex as consumption, and that the exchange model at least has the dignity of focusing on sexual exchange from a producer perspective instead of the consumer perspective.

I find Regnerus's views horrible, as I think real feminist emancipation is to treat women as human beings, not as objects, and it doesn't help to consider intimate relationships through the lens of economic production instead of as a consumer activity - the goal should be to go beyond such a limited view. Even while we recognize and concede that human beings will always see each other to some degree as useful means to various practical ends, there's also a humanist, ethical imperative to see each other as more than merely this, as ends in ourselves. Without this humanist respect for the sacredness of others' autonomy, it is all too easy to fall into authoritarian forms of relationship and governance in both the public and private spheres. (less)

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Sophia

Oct 28, 2014Sophia rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, psychology

The Transformation of Intimacy provides a comprehensive account of modern relationship dynamics. Giddens thought provoking offerings are always well justified. However his organization of the chapters, and content, isn't immediately evident. (less)

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Paz

Jan 31, 2013Paz rated it it was ok  ·  review of another edition

Ehm. Sorry Antonio: mejor el título que el contenido.

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Nicole

Jul 20, 2012Nicole rated it it was ok

too many generalisations for my taste

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Guilherme Smee

Oct 23, 2017Guilherme Smee rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: sociologia

1727 / 5000

Translation results

Unlike most books in the field of sociology, Anthony Giddens' theoretical prose is quite pleasant to read. This book could be a historical overview of how sexuality, love and eroticism - or, in short, intimacy - were viewed. But the author asks us the pressing questions first and then traces possible causes. Thus, he explains among many things how autonomy ended up damaging intimacy, especially in the case of men, who must prove to be "selfmade men" and not depend on anyone's help. A survey caught me saying that many men had no friends to share their intimacies with, and when they did, those friends were women. This says a lot about our culture, which is self-centered, which values ​​independence above anything, and which offers no chance for empathy and feelings. They treat them as if that were a sign of weakness, feelings proper to an inferior and abject being who, according to our culture, would be women. The "proclamation of independence" by men took place before women (the 30s and 40s compared to the 70s and 80s of women) and, therefore, they still need to assert themselves as free beings. The funny thing is that many women find it beautiful to be just like men, apathetic and without feelings, capable of everything to guarantee their individuality and independence. Would this be an inversion of values ​​or just a way of underlining "penis envy", since, as feminist Luce Irigaray says, women have a "hole" in their body and heart? A very disturbing question, but one that I leave with you ... I do not dare to answer. I'm just here to bother your life! Bjokas! =* (less)

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Monic

Jul 07, 2007Monic rated it it was amazing

Changing social conditions are the basis of all forms of personal relations. Human civilization towards modernity has changed the social system, social institutions and social values, and has an impact on changing human intimate relations. Giddens looks specifically at how intimacy goes hand in hand with social change. Especially gender equality which has space in the realities of social life. Without realizing it, this kind of daily development gave birth to a sexuality revolution. This does not merely change equality in the economic and political sphere, but also sexual and emotional equality. This kind of fracture of sexuality can certainly bring about a contestation between the sociological dimension and the psychological dimension of the individual, opening up emotional gaps between the two sexes and trying to change the form of human relations. Relations move in a round of adjustments between self-democratization in accordance with public democratization. Giddens gave rise to the concept of sincere relationships (less)

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Renato M.

Mar 20, 2012Renato M. rated it it was amazing

Anthony Giddens, LA TRASFORMAZIONE DELL'INTIMITA'. Sessualità, amore ed erotismo nelle società moderne (il Mulino. p.216):

"Too often dreams of romantic love have pushed women into domestic submission. Convergent love presupposes equality in the accounts of affective give and take, all the more so as the love relationship approaches the model of the pure relationship. it grows only as the degree of intimacy increases and each partner appears willing not only to reveal their concerns and needs to the other, but also to be vulnerable to them. their availability and their ability to be vulnerable "8p.72) A fundamental reading to understand the deep motivations of our relationship, coexistence and couple crises and to understand the great changes in our intimacy. Clear and simple reflections. Excellent translation by Delia Tasso: a special thanks to her. (less)

Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age - Kindle edition by Giddens, Anthony. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age - Kindle edition by Giddens, Anthony. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Look inside this book.Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age by [Anthony Giddens]

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Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age Kindle Edition

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This major study develops a new account of modernity and its relation to the self. Building upon the ideas set out in The Consequences of Modernity, Giddens argues that 'high' or 'late' modernity is a post traditional order characterised by a developed institutional reflexivity. In the current period, the globalising tendencies of modern institutions are accompanied by a transformation of day-to-day social life having profound implications for personal activities. The self becomes a 'reflexive project', sustained through a revisable narrative of self identity. The reflexive project of the self, the author seeks to show, is a form of control or mastery which parallels the overall orientation of modern institutions towards 'colonising the future'. Yet it also helps promote tendencies which place that orientation radically in question - and which provide the substance of a new political agenda for late modernity.

In this book Giddens concerns himself with themes he has often been accused of unduly neglecting, including especially the psychology of self and self-identity. The volumes are a decisive step in the development of his thinking, and will be essential reading for students and professionals in the areas of social and political theory, sociology, human geography and social psychology.

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From the Back Cover

The author argues that 'high' or 'late' modernity is a post-traditional order characterized by a developed institutional reflexivity. In the current period, the globalizing tendencies of modern institutions are accompanied by a transformation of day-to-day social life having profound implications for personal activities. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Review

'This book supplies the missing psychological link in Anthony Giddens' ever more substantial body of work on the sociology of modernity ... rich and measured ... His dialectical approach, moreover, affords many insights into the interconnection between the invasive and disorienting effects of commercial and technical imperatives.' New Statesman and Society

From the Inside Flap

Modernity differs from all preceding forms of social order because of its dynamism, its deep undercutting of traditional habits and customs, and its global impact. It also radicallly alters the general nature of daily life and the most personal aspects of human activity. In fact, one of the most distinctive features of modernity is the increasing interconnection between globalizing influences and personal dispositions. The author analyzes the nature of this interconnection and provides a conceptual vocabulary for it, in the process providing a major rethinking of the nature of modernity and a reworking of basic premises of sociological analysis.

Building on the ideas set out in the authors The Consequences of Modernity

, this book focuses on the self and the emergence of new mechanisms of self-identity that are shaped by—yet also shape—the institutions of modernity. The author argues that the self is not a passive entity, determined by external influences. Rather, in forging their self-identities, no matter how local their contexts of action, individuals contribute to and directly promote social influences that are global in their consequences and implications.

The author sketches the contours of the he calls “high modernity”—the world of our day—and considers its ramifications for the self and self-identity. In this context, he analyzes the meaning to the self of such concepts as trust, fate, risk, and security and goes on the examine the “sequestration of experience,” the process by which high modernity separates day-to-day social life from a variety of experiences and broad issues of morality. The author demonstrates how personal meaninglessness—the feeling that life has nothing worthwhile to offer—becomes a fundamental psychic problem in circumstances of high modernity. The book concludes with a discussion of “life politics,” a politics of selfactualization operating on both the individual and collective levels.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product details

ASIN : B00DSLHOGG

Publisher : Polity; 1st edition (April 29, 2013)

Publication date : April 29, 2013

Language : English

File size : 834 KB

Text-to-Speech : Enabled

Screen Reader : Supported

Enhanced typesetting : Enabled

X-Ray : Not Enabled

Word Wise : Enabled

Print length : 268 pages

Page numbers source ISBN : 0804719446

Lending : Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #735,116 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)

#3,470 in Sociology (Kindle Store)

#20,955 in Sociology (Books)

Customer Reviews: 4.7 out of 5 stars    35 ratings

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Biography

Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is a British sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists, the author of at least 34 books, published in at least 29 languages, issuing on average more than one book every year. In 2007, Giddens was listed as the fifth most-referenced author of books in the humanities.

Three notable stages can be identified in his academic life. The first one involved outlining a new vision of what sociology is, presenting a theoretical and methodological understanding of that field, based on a critical reinterpretation of the classics. His major publications of that era include Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971) and The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies (1973). In the second stage Giddens developed the theory of structuration, an analysis of agency and structure, in which primacy is granted to neither. His works of that period, such as New Rules of Sociological Method (1976), Central Problems in Social Theory (1979) and The Constitution of Society (1984), brought him international fame on the sociological arena.

The most recent stage concerns modernity, globalisation and politics, especially the impact of modernity on social and personal life. This stage is reflected by his critique of postmodernity, and discussions of a new "utopian-realist" third way in politics, visible in the Consequences of Modernity (1990), Modernity and Self-Identity (1991), The Transformation of Intimacy (1992), Beyond Left and Right (1994) and The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (1998). Giddens' ambition is both to recast social theory and to re-examine our understanding of the development and trajectory of modernity.

Giddens served as Director of the London School of Economics 1997–2003, where he is now Emeritus Professor at the Department of Sociology.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Szusi [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Ambi

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2018

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V. May

4.0 out of 5 stars Purchased for a college course

Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2015

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I had to purchase this for a introductory sociology course. Although the substance of the book is interesting, it was a rather difficult read. I had to look things over several times and ask for clarifications from the professor before I really understood. I believe that taking a sociology course provided me with the knowledge to appreciate the material that I otherwise would not have fully grasped on my own.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Good

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There were some makings from the previous owner but it actually helped me. I received the product like new.

The texts are easily readable and even though it didn't have pictures, it's an attractive book.

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Orli

4.0 out of 5 stars it's fine

Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2013

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The book is what I wanted and I arrived very quickly, but only after the arrival I saw it has some marks and notes inside (it was also written the in book description - I guess I didn't check carefully). can't complain, but it bothered me anyway.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars

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5.0 out of 5 stars gr8

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This was a great read. A good story. Yay. Gr8. I just need this for my soc. class. Yes. Ok.

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Andrew D. Oram

4.0 out of 5 stars A thoughtful analysis with a moral and call to action

Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2009

I found this very useful to my own understanding of trends and potential in modern times, and I recommend the book for its positive-minded, constructive approach to today's problems. Giddens accepts many of the commonly understand aspects of life today--our reliance of large, abstract systems we don't understand, our risk of losing our individual identities in these systems, the expanded role of the state in our lives, and so on--which is why I assign only four stars to this book instead of five.

Giddens is an optimist, as well as a very capable writer. His book proceeds in a well-planned series of steps from basic principles of modern life to the power we can still exert as individuals and as social movements. (The text becomes easier to read as you go along, I've found.)

The threat of global warming hangs over the text, and its relevance is even clearer now, 18 years after the book was published. Furthermore, I think Giddens assumes that certain movements, such as therapy and woman's liberation, have gone further and reached more of the population than they really have. But the book's message of possibilities persists, and goads us on to moral action.

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Henri Edward Dongieux

5.0 out of 5 stars A lucid and engaging synthesis

Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2001

This book is indeed a work of social science, and not a work of formal logic, dialectic, or philosophy. And as such, it seeks to avoid the subject-object aporias and non-explanatory vocabulary of "postmodernism" so fashionable in some academic circles in favor of an integrated model of the self and society that not only makes sense, but resonates with the modern reader and social scientist in a way not easily dismissable by concerns of validity claims. Phenomenology, it must be noted, is less than a water-tight system of defendable truth-claims; postmodernism in its extreme denies the notion of objective knowledge altogether. This book has different aims.

The strength of Giddens' work has always been his identification of reflexivity as the central mechanism behind social and psychological transformations - the nested critique of society that sets up progressively complex turnovers in psyche and structure, one on the heels of the other, institutionalizing doubt as a central feature of existential and social life. Giddens makes clear that "postmodernity" is a meaningless term for his purposes; instead he takes the more sensible route (alongside contemporaries such as the brilliant Scott Lash) and employs the term "high modernity" to describe the present times as of the same conceputal order (albeit much more "intense" in critical ways) than preceding centuries. He compares and contrasts the self and the other, the mechanics of disembedding and reimbedding, the dynamics of intensionality and extensionality, and the twin states of trust and risk in a way that convincingly demonstrates that modernity is a game whose time is not yet up - and whose textures social science is capable of elegantly describing, and possibly even explaining. Giddens' theory of the "pure relationship" and his related analyses of self-society relationships are extremely important theoretically to many areas of the social sciences, including nation-state theory, globalization, development ethnography, refugee studies, and cultural studies. His work is even beginning to exert an influence on parallel disciplines as well, for example discourse analysis.

So, while the philosopher might dismiss this work as dependent on the truth-claims of modern psychology, the sociologist (at whatever level of expertise) will find this to be an engaging, challenging, and clearly written work with far-ranging application to empirical social-scientific material.

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Jo Cursley

5.0 out of 5 stars invaluable reference book

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This book with its exploration of identity was clearly written and was very useful as reference for my thesis. It arrived promptly and in very good condition.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Good book

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Isadora

5.0 out of 5 stars This book made sense of my life! (& helped me to get a great grade in my Masters)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 10, 2011

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I couldn't be more surprised by the other review. Giddens is at his absolute best in this book. It is packed full of amazing theories which make sense of your whole life. I used it for my Masters and found it not just informative but one of the most enjoyable books I have read. I still quote from it in all kinds of different contexts.

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Reader

5.0 out of 5 stars Modernity and Send identity

Reviewed in Canada on February 19, 2017

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Eccellent academic source book

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Michael

Sep 14, 2019Michael rated it it was ok

I found this book extremely annoying.

We can start with some good points. Giddens states, forcefully and clearly, a set of propositions about the 'modern self'. It is a familiar picture for anyone familiar with the literature. If you've read Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self, Lionel Trilling's Sincerity and Authenticity, or Nancy Armstrong's Desire and Domestic Fiction, for example, you will already have encountered the notion that individuality, personality, privacy etc. are hallmarks of modern culture. What Giddens adds to this tradition is a focus on everyday life in Westernised countries today. His approach is systematic. He tries to list all the 'tribulations of the self' we regularly encounter, all the factors that lead to 'existential anxiety', all the systems that lead to the 'sequestration of experience'.

What he does not do, it is sad to say, is defend his conception of 'modernity'. The book is full of extremely frustrating arguments about how 'modern' differs from 'pre-modern' life, where Giddens describes the 'pre-modern' way of doing things in a single sentence, and provides neither evidence nor argument to justify his interpretation of the first 400,000 years of human existence. He expresses absolute certainty that 'modern' life is fundamentally different in character from all the 'pre-modern' life that preceded it, and yet makes no attempt at all to deal with the extreme diversity of 'pre-modern' ways of doing things. How can gardeners from the highlands of New Guinea, herdsmen of the Serengeti, the urbanised farmers of ancient Mesopotamia and the igloo-builders of Siberia seriously all be dumped into the single bucket of the 'pre-modern'?

Perhaps I am overly harsh. Giddens does occasionally reference a famous ethnographer or historian, and there may be a great deal of erudition lurking behind the self-confident prose. But one does suspect that his viewpoint is irremediably Eurocentric. On the odd occasion when he does indulge in some historical detail to substantiate his points, his examples are all European, and they are either quite superficial or just plain wrong. It is not the case, for example, that 'most historians agree that autobiographies (as well as biographies) only developed during the modern period'. What was St Augustine doing when he wrote his Confessions in 397AD, if not writing his autobiography? If the Buddhacharita is not a biography of the Buddha, then what exactly is it? Perhaps there are answers to such questions. Perhaps what Giddens really meant is the a new kind of 'modern' biography emerged in Europe over the last 200-300 years. But if this is what he meant, he should have said so, and he should have explained it.

Now if Giddens' understanding of European history is superficial, his knowledge of Asian, African, American and Oceanic history is apparently non-existent. If he had engaged with world history in the book, he would have had to revise several of his claims. One of his crucial claims, for instance, is that modernity is characterised by the 'pure relationship'. In modernity, our sexual relations are determined by free choice. We select a partner because we want to live with them, not because it fulfills some social obligation to marry someone of a particular kin-group or because an authority-figure has instructed us to do so. (In this we differ greatly from our poor 'pre-modern' forebears.) This kind of 'pure relationship' changes the meaning of sex. Sex is now a pure form of 'intimacy'. In fact, there really was no such thing as 'intimacy' before modernity, because sex always had a public and social character.

What rot.

Anyone who has read a single sūfī devotional poem or a classic of Sanskrit erotic verse who know full well that 'intimacy', privacy and the joys of sex have been valued for their own sake in many times and places. In fact, 'intimacy' was so valued by sūfī and Sanskrit poets of antiquity and the middle ages that it came to symbolise the individual's relationship with God. Now to give Giddens his due, it is probably fair to say that St Augustine inaugurated 1,500 years of prudery in Western culture, and that in the modern West intimacy has been revalued. But if he wanted to make this argument he should have done so.

It could be objected that I have focused on the wrong aspect of the book. The book is really a book about what it is like to be an individual today in the West, not a world history explaining the development of 'modernity'. Taken this way, it has a lot of merits, primarily as a kind of textbook that summarises the common sense of Anglo-American liberalism in the 1990s. But on the very first page, Giddens claims that it is not only a few societies he wishes to examine, nor will he focus only on one historical moment. It is 'modernity' as a whole that he sets out to describe, and unfortunately he makes very few of the comparisons necessary to distinguish what is 'modern' from what is not.

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Benediktas

Jul 16, 2013Benediktas rated it really liked it

Some vague chapters without clear purpose or meaning but an impressive work in general, emphasizing and analyzing moral and political issues of late-modernity/neocapitalist society in a convincing, positive manner. Sociology, psychology and philosophy are combined in a search for an understanding of various aspects of self-identity (risk, mediation, reflexivity...) specific to our times - that leads to quite a complex vocabulary but also rewards with insights into possibilities of fruitful transdisciplinary research. For those who don't have the time or patience to read through the whole book, I would recommend the parts on pure relationship, narcissism and sequestration which I found to be the most original and thought-provoking. (less)

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loafingcactus

Aug 31, 2014loafingcactus rated it really liked it

Shelves: available-at-unc, checked-out-2014, read-2014, sociology

The author has a brilliant concept of society, this I will not argue. In life one is offered many solutions to modern life with little analysis or background, such as the solution of spending more time in nature. And I have heard a counter-argument to that solution which suggests that because nature is amoral it decreases the moral good of those exposed to it rather than increases it. Without directly addressing that argument, the author makes an exceptionally good argument in this book for why connections with nature are a good counterpoint to the difficulties of modernity. Essentially, modernity turns everything inward such that it is only self-referential. Nature, in its inability to be controlled, cannot be pulled into those reflexive structures. Consequently exposure to nature can present a non-reflexive reality to a person who has been trained to only exist reflexively. And there’s more where that came from.

So that’s the good. It is considerable and you would be better off for having read the book. I took 25 pages of notes. Now for the bad: The author is known for churning out book after book and if this book is any example of the self-indulgence involved then one need not wonder how he does it. The shortcomings in scholarship are particularly irksome in the present environment where publishers claim to have a purpose as quality control. If this is all they can do, Stanford University Press has no purpose in being. By far the most egregious example of poor scholarship is a citation of Kafka which is a secondary citation. This is an author who surely can assign a grad student to go find the proper citation for him but he just doesn’t even bother, and the publisher let him get away with it.

But wait, there’s more. The author cites hardly any other works or facts. It’s simply him and his wisdom having a little solipsistic party. Two entire chapters of the book are written as analysis of other books which were picked just because. One chapter is on the genre of self-actualization self-help books, written as an analysis of a randomly selected book. Again, given the availability of unlimited grad students one would expect the author to select some particular book for some particular reason. Raffle off a Twinkie for the best reason. Having some reason is just not that hard.

Leaving that behind, I do have a couple of quibbles with his arguments. The main one is that at the end of the book he gives humanity an assignment which he believes will lead out of the impossible morass of modernity, but the author has not answered two fundamental questions: Why would humanity come together to respond to his assignment? (This is making me laugh a lot- really, why? Have you ever tried to tell a group of people to do something? Let alone every last person on the planet. LMAO.) And, does free will (agency, if you must) exist such that the assignment has any meaning?

The book reminds me quite a bit of The Technological Society, where Ellul also explains an impossible-to-counter direction of society and after explaining all the possibilities at considerable length provides an unsatisfactory way out. But Ellul at least has a reason, even if it is not a very good one, for making the argument in the context of free will. This author is silent on the matter.

And a last matter of irksomeness is that the author uses the term “morality” without any particular meaning. Near the end of the book the author presents a chart attempting to show an analysis of moral questions as they emerge from existential realities, but it is as haphazard as the books the author selected to respond to and therefore does not answer the question of what he means by morality. In fact, if what the author means is direct existential questions, then how the author uses the term in the book as a solution is problematic.

Misc review footnote: The issues discussed in this book map very well to the novels of Thomas Hardy. (less)

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Milad Jahani

Oct 14, 2015Milad Jahani rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

آنتونی گیدنز نویسنده کتاب"تجددو تشخص" به دنبال بررسی و ارتباط بین تجدد در عصر کنونی-اخیر- و هویت شخصی است که رویکردی جامعه شناختی و روانشناختی را زیر بنای صحبت خود قرار می دهد. گیدنز هریک از بخش های موضوعی خود را با توجه به متغییر های در بردارنده اش مورد ارزیابی قرار می دهد.

در ابتدا تجدد در عصر کنونی را ادامه نوعی نظم ما بَعد سنتی می داند و جهانی شدن را جزء سازوکارهای این عصر برمی شمارد. به اعتقاد وی سه اصل را که تحت عنوان پویایی و تحرک اجتماعی یعنی جدایی زمان و فضا ، ساختکارهای تکه برداری و با ...more

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Andy Oram

Dec 03, 2009Andy Oram rated it really liked it

Shelves: politics

I found this very useful to my own understanding of trends and potential in modern times, and I recommend the book for its positive-minded, constructive approach to today's problems. Giddens accepts many of the commonly understand aspects of life today--our reliance of large, abstract systems we don't understand, our risk of losing our individual identities in these systems, the expanded role of the state in our lives, and so on--which is why I assign only four stars to this book instead of five.

Giddens is an optimist, as well as a very capable writer. His book proceeds in a well-planned series of steps from basic principles of modern life to the power we can still exert as individuals and as social movements. (The text becomes easier to read as you go along, I've found.)

The threat of global warming hangs over the text, and its relevance is even clearer now, 18 years after the book was published. Furthermore, I think Giddens assumes that certain movements, such as therapy and woman's liberation, have gone further and reached more of the population than they really have. But the book's message of possibilities persists, and goads us on to moral action.

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Kmorgenstern

May 12, 2018Kmorgenstern rated it it was amazing

In this book, Anthony Giddens offers a very detailed and comprehensive analysis of the existential problems concerning every individual is facing in this late modern age in forging an identity for the self-project. This is by no means an easy task given the confusions of choice we are all confronted with now. This book brilliantly bridges psychology with social science. It is an incredibly dense read, though, forcing one to chew on each sentence to really comprehend the significance of it. Very coherently argued and laid out, it shed a huge light on both my psychology and my sociological studies - and it provided the missing link. Some might be disappointed that in the end, he does not come up with an easy answer, but to me, that is what makes the book even more valuable as it stimulates the reader to really engage and think about the questions and issues asked and find their own answers. I already know, I will be revisiting this book down the road. Right now I am still digesting the first round. (less)

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Burcu

May 25, 2017Burcu added it

The introduction is helpful, yet as the author himself acknowledges, there are many references to earlier works, particularly The Consequences of Modernity. There is some exploration into psychoanalysis as well in the earlier chapters. The main text is essentially a veering of the questions he raised in "The Consequences" toward the idea of the self in relation to the social. In a way, the self is "embedded" into the earlier framework. (less)

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Farid Kamyab

Jun 09, 2017Farid Kamyab rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

خیلی دقیق و کوتاه بگم: منحصر به فرد و دنباله ی کتاب «پیامد های مدرنیت» که اینبار نه جامعه شناسی، بلکه بیشتر یک اثر در زمینه روان شناسی اجتماعی است.

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Tanya

Aug 08, 2012Tanya rated it it was amazing

Shelves: misc-academic, globalization

Excellent book on the "modern project" of the self. Fascinating given it was written over a decade ago. (less)

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Nicholas

Sep 08, 2018Nicholas rated it really liked it

Written by one of the greatest thinkers of modernity, one can’t help but see why this book gives birth to many theoretical spinoffs in fields outside of sociology, such as political science and IR. Never eager to lament about lost innocence or to launch into a tirade against capitalism, Modernity and Self Identity is a meditation that considers both in equal nuance and finesse. That doesn’t mean its diagnosis isn’t piercingly unsettling.

Yet, by ditching Foucauldian and Marxist perspectives that in Gidden’s reckoning is too fast in laying the blame on power and domination, the book offers us no easy way out of the contradiction between a self-referential system and its underlying meaningless. And being reflexive about it doesn’t make it better. Such is the genius yet terrifying indictment of Giddens. (less)

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KimNica

Dec 28, 2019KimNica rated it liked it

Shelves: politics-economics-society

Many points Giddens makes with regards to living under conditions of high modernity resonate and don't ring less true thirty years after they were first written. However, Giddens technical language and sparse use of examples makes many of them difficult to follow - I had to read many sections and even chapters multiple times to really understand them which is a bit annoying. Also, let's not forget that the perspective of this book is extremely Eurocentric and that many observations are probably less applicable if you are not from a Western First World country.

Nonetheless, there is a lot in here for anyone remotely interested in the social sciences and contemporary life. (less)

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The Metamorphosis of the World 2016 by Beck, Ulrich

The Metamorphosis of the World: How Climate Change is Transforming Our Concept of the World - Kindle edition by Beck, Ulrich. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

The Metamorphosis of the World: How Climate Change is Transforming Our Concept of the World 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Ulrich Beck  (Author)  Format: Kindle Edition

4.2 out of 5 stars    26 ratings

We live in a world that is increasingly difficult to understand. It is not just changing: it is metamorphosing. Change implies that some things change but other things remain the same capitalism changes, but some aspects of capitalism remain as they always were. Metamorphosis implies a much more radical transformation in which the old certainties of modern society are falling away and something quite new is emerging. To grasp this metamorphosis of the world it is necessary to explore the new beginnings, to focus on what is emerging from the old and seek to grasp future structures and norms in the turmoil of the present.

Take climate change: much of the debate about climate change has focused on whether or not it is really happening, and if it is, what we can do to stop or contain it. But this emphasis on solutions blinds us to the fact that climate change is an agent of metamorphosis. It has already altered our way of being in the world the way we live in the world, think about the world and seek to act upon the world through our actions and politics. Rising sea levels are creating new landscapes of inequality drawing new world maps whose key lines are not traditional boundaries between nation-states but elevations above sea level. It is creating an entirely different way of conceptualizing the world and our chances of survival within it.

The theory of metamorphosis goes beyond theory of world risk society: it is not about the negative side effects of goods but the positive side effects of bads. They produce normative horizons of common goods and propel us beyond the national frame towards a cosmopolitan outlook.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'This book, which its author, one of the most original and perceptive thinkers of our time, was prevented from completing by a sudden catastrophe, reads as a most thorough and exhaustive – indeed complete – description of our world: a world defined by its endemic incompleteness and dedicated to resisting completion.'

―Zygmunt Bauman 

'This brilliant manifesto is in good part Ulrich Beck having a debate with himself. He comes out winning, because whatever doubts or disagreements he may have with himself, he moves on, never losing sight of the foundational distinction he is after – transformation vs metamorphosis. The text oscillates between deeply engaging philosophical reflections and decisive interpretive outcomes. And there is no need to worry about the unresolved doubts Beck puts on the table: they are certain to become a great research project for future generations.'

―Saskia Sassen, Columbia University 

'Amid crises, challenges, and startling innovations the world is taking on a new shape and character. Quantitative change gives way to qualitative on dimensions from inequality through climate change. The new reality is by definition not completely knowable, but we can know the path to it better by reading Ulrich Beck's sadly but somehow also aptly unfinished book, The Metamorphosis of the World.' 

―Craig Calhoun, Director, London School of Economics and Political Science --This text refers to the paperback edition.

About the Author

Ulrich Beck 1944-2015) was Professor of Sociology at the University of Munich and the LSE and one of the greatest sociologists of the twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN : B01FVBM6W2

Publisher : Polity; 1st edition (May 17, 2016)

Publication date : May 17, 2016

Language : English

File size : 393 KB

Text-to-Speech : Enabled

Screen Reader : Supported

Enhanced typesetting : Enabled

X-Ray : Not Enabled

Word Wise : Enabled

Print length : 231 pages

Page numbers source ISBN : 0745690211

Lending : Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #1,121,015 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)

#2,345 in Climatology

#5,328 in Environmental Science (Books)

#5,826 in Sociology (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews: 4.2 out of 5 stars    26 ratings

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climate change ulrich beck metamorphosis of the world thought provoking new world beck summarizes his ideas public general risk academic audience class german sociologist sense sociology clearly colleagues creating finish

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Claude Forthomme

4.0 out of 5 stars How a Major Thinker Sees Our World

Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2019

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Not an easy read but an important one. This is how a major thinker sees our world - metamorphosed by climate change into something else, a new world whose contours we can barely fathom out. I am taking a star off simply because this is a specialized work not intended for the average reader. The arguments could have been made more accessible, but there was no attempt to do so. The book is clearly intended for specialists and sociology students.

This said, there's much to be learned from it - and as an economist, I found it a very interesting read, showing how (by what analytical means) sociology as a science is moving to address the planetary issue that many have called the 6th Extinction.

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Clarissa's Blog

5.0 out of 5 stars Beck’s Last Book

Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2016

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The great German philosopher📃 Ulrich Beck died before completing this book. His wife and colleagues had to finish it based on the author’s notes and conversations. As a result, the book ended up being very repetitive. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though. If I had to choose a book by Beck to introduce students to his thinking, I’d pick this one because its repetitiveness will help Beck’s ideas really to get across.

Since the collapse of the nation-state model is inevitable, should we drag it out in order to soften the impact or should we accept the inevitable and move on? Ulrich Beck insists that we have no time to waste because the longer we hang on to the illusion that the nation-state is salvageable, the more time we waste instead of solving the problems of the new world order. The most pressing problems of today – climate change, for instance- will only begin to be addressed when we relinquish the nation-state illusions.

Ulrich Beck’s posthumously published volume is an impassioned plea for us to stop hiding from the erosion of the nation-state model behind right-wing fundamentalism, ultra nationalism or vapid fantasies about bringing back the good old times and to start creating structures of action and collaboration that will transcend the porous national borders just as easily as floods, hurricanes, radioactive clouds, viruses and terrorists do. We can’t allow the agents of our risk to travel faster and lighter than we do.

[📃In Europe, Beck is known as a sociologist, just like Zygmunt Bauman. But a sociologist in Europe is nothing like the useless idiots who call themselves sociologists in the US. Beck and Bauman are the world’s leading thinkers, philosophers, theorists of the nation-state and not the kind of pseudo scholars you can find in American departments of social sciences.]

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Steve Benner

4.0 out of 5 stars Making sense of an increasingly unhinged world

Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2016

Ulrich Beck was Professor of Sociology at the University of Munich and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His sociological text, "The Metamorphosis of the World" was incomplete and in preliminary manuscript form only at the the of his sudden death from a heart attack in early 2015. His partner, Elizabeth Beck-Gernsheim, has worked with Beck's former colleagues and collaborators, Anders Blok (Copenhagen) and Sabine Selchow (London) to bring the work to publishable form for Polity Press.

The book's main topic is a proposed remodelling of the way sociologists need to think of and analyse the modern world if they are to make sense of the way it now functions; that the mode of change into which the world has now entered should no longer be viewed in conventional sociological terms of transformational, revolutionary or evolutionary but rather as metamorphosis -- the author's suggested term for a world undergoing complicated spontaneous (and irreversible) emergence into something new, unknown and unplanned. This change is not the result of deliberate policy or design anywhere, but rather arises as a consequences of undesirable side-effects of the progress of modernity; side-effects (such as climate change) that operate on a global scale and which render obsolete political action and thinking within traditional national boundaries, creating "risk societies" across national and class boundaries and calling into question the legitimacy of nation-state political decision-making.

The book's main intended audience would appear to be principally sociologists themselves, rather than the general public, for whom many of the finer points of the author's argument will be lost, obscured by the opaque and impenetrably precise technical language which the author employs (and not helped by the fact that much of that language is clearly influenced by Beck's German language heritage). That said, however, there remain many revelatory ideas for the lay reader within this volume's 200 pages and anyone prepared to invest the effort in reading it should be well rewarded with much to ponder, not just with regard to the politics of global climate change, but also with regard to digital communities, the politics of invisibility, empowering of the younger generation, the emerging promise of a world of great equality and the power struggles that are likely to arise, as nation-states lose their legitimacy and world cities emerge to become the principal power-houses for global change in the way people view the world and their relationship with it.

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Gary J.

5.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinary perspective on the place of environmental destruction in ...

Reviewed in Canada on January 16, 2017

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An extraordinary perspective on the place of environmental destruction in post-modern society. Beck says it is here and a necessary ingredient in the neo-liberal economic paradigm - Environmental destruction is part of our way of doing business, eg oil. What then are we to do?

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Steve Benner

4.0 out of 5 stars Making sense of an increasingly unhinged world

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 13, 2016

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

Ulrich Beck was Professor of Sociology at the University of Munich and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His sociological text, "The Metamorphosis of the World" was incomplete and in preliminary manuscript form only at the the of his sudden death from a heart attack in early 2015. His partner, Elizabeth Beck-Gernsheim, has worked with Beck's former colleagues and collaborators, Anders Blok (Copenhagen) and Sabine Selchow (London) to bring the work to publishable form for Polity Press.

The book's main topic is a proposed remodelling of the way sociologists need to think of and analyse the modern world if they are to make sense of the way it now functions; that the mode of change into which the world has now entered should no longer be viewed in conventional sociological terms of transformational, revolutionary or evolutionary but rather as metamorphosis -- the author's suggested term for a world undergoing complicated spontaneous (and irreversible) emergence into something new, unknown and unplanned. This change is not the result of deliberate policy or design anywhere, but rather arises as a consequences of undesirable side-effects of the progress of modernity; side-effects (such as climate change) that operate on a global scale and which render obsolete political action and thinking within traditional national boundaries, creating "risk societies" across national and class boundaries and calling into question the legitimacy of nation-state political decision-making.

The book's main intended audience would appear to be principally sociologists themselves, rather than the general public, for whom many of the finer points of the author's argument will be lost, obscured by the opaque and impenetrably precise technical language which the author employs (and not helped by the fact that much of that language is clearly influenced by Beck's German language heritage). That said, however, there remain many revelatory ideas for the lay reader within this volume's 200 pages and anyone prepared to invest the effort in reading it should be well rewarded with much to ponder, not just with regard to the politics of global climate change, but also with regard to digital communities, the politics of invisibility, empowering of the younger generation, the emerging promise of a world of great equality and the power struggles that are likely to arise, as nation-states lose their legitimacy and world cities emerge to become the principal power-houses for global change in the way people view the world and their relationship with it.

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Emily - London

3.0 out of 5 stars There are theoretical nuggets here

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 30, 2016

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This book opens with drama - the author collapses dead in front of his partner, and his colleague and partner complete what had only been a first draft.

Beck is someone who naturally takes a European theoretical and rhetorical approach in his writing rather than the traditional English empirical and factual style - so it is pretty heavy going. As one reviewer put it, Beck is 'having a debate with himself'. Nevertheless there are nuggets here - striking visual and conceptual metaphors that help you think about the world.

Focusing on his discussion of climate change as one example of metamorphosis, he sees our changing perception of the world as a 'Copernican Turn 2' - the world picture which claimed that the sun was turning round the world always was false, but our perceptions are completely transformed when this becomes our new reality. The realisation of the extent of climate change and what is causing it, completely alters our perception of what is driving history and what is happening around us. "The world is not circulating round the nation, but the nations are circulating around the new fixed stars: 'world' and 'humanity'." The world view growing out of the imperialist Victorian era - that we are masters of the world is reversed, and international action becomes a matter of survival in the world.

He also usefully distinguishes between 'doctrines' and 'spaces of action' - what people think and what they actually do. "Doctrines can be particular and minority-oriented eg anti-cosmopolitan, anti-European, religiously fundamental, ethnic, racist; paces of action on the contrary, are inevitably constituted in a cosmopolitan way. The anti-Europeans actually sit in the European Parliament (otherwise they don't matter at all). The religious anti-modernist fundamentalists celebrate the beheadings of their western hostages on .... digital media platforms ..." Even immobile people are cosmopolitanised because increasingly they have access to knowledge through their mobile phones. result - some of them migrate.

"In sum, metamorphosis is not social change, not transformation, not evolution, not revolution and not crisis. It is a mode of changing the nature of human existence. It signifies the age of side effects. "It shifts us from 'methodological nationalism' to 'methodological cosmopolitanism' because of our interconnectedness and changed awareness of our interconnected dependency on nature.

But after this good start, on climate change the author lapses into a disguised optimism - that the metamorphosis of the world will in the end force international action or catastrophe.

He sees rising sea levels and shifting climate patterns as creating "new world maps whose key lines are not traditional boundaries between nation states and social classes but elevations above sea or river. This is a totally different way of conceptualising the world and our chances of survival within it."

He says "climate change produces a basis sense of ethical and existential violation that creates new norms". It is as dramatic as the catastrophe of the second world war and of Nazism - which produced a never-again reaction and the human rights movement.

"The insight that no nation state can cope alone with the global risk of climate change has become common sense." But he underplays the extent to which the climate inequalities mirror the old inequalities - that drought will affect sub Saharan Africa more than it will affect Europe, that richer nations have greater ability to protect themselves against flooding.

"Climate change could be made into an antidote to war" but economic collapse and mass migration could also precipitate war.

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Noah

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for thinkers or for your sociological research

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 13, 2016

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This handsome grey hardback with red boards inside is presented in a highly contrasting white sleeve. Text is a readable size business font on a wonderfully white background.

I am so pleased that this book was written because is stands as a testament to the mind and work of Ulrich Beck. An unfinished and unedited version was sent to the publishers a few days before he died unexpectedly of a heart attack, whereupon colleagues have polished it into what it is now - an excellent memorial and a brilliant stand alone discussion of the idea of metamorphosis. It is a world we don't understand anymore, a world that is changing so substantially that we can no longer refer to it as change or even transformation but rather metamorphosis - because what it is becoming is nothing like what it was! he talks of the risks felt by society, the politics of visibility and invisibility, inequality and the good side effects of bad things. This work denotes the thinking of a great mind, discussions between sociologists and it will stretch your own thinking to consider potential outcomes.

This book ends with a really good bibliography which will stimulate further reading or perhaps a little research of your own

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mr_ska

5.0 out of 5 stars Does what some of the very best sociological works do, it makes you see the world afresh from a new perspective.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2016

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Let's split the audience for this book into two. We have the sociologists, and we have the general public. The two audiences will get different but overlapping things from the book.

The general public don't read all that many books written by sociologists. There are many reasons for that, but not least is that a significant proportion of sociological works are written in convoluted language. Language that makes the work hard to follow and less than enjoyable to read. The Metamorphosis of the World scores well here in that nearly all of it is written in very accessible plain English, and the way it is structured (e.g. split into parts and subdivided) makes it quite easy to read. Where the book also scores highly is in creating those moments that delight the reader by revealing a totally different way of looking at the world than they are used to. For that if nothing else the book is worth the full five stars.

For the sociology audience there is much to sink the teeth into. Many moments of chains of semiosis being fired off. Many models checked through and compared to what Beck presents. Many questions raised. We get to ponder (and perhaps raise a smile) at the thought of reconfiguring Marx and Hegel from economic determinism and the role of ideas in shaping history (dialectics as shaped by human activity) to the effects of climate change on the environment shaping history. A bold and grand step by Beck. We get to compare and contrast the likes of Bauman's notions on (liquid) modernity with Beck's model of complete transformation. Much to keep us busy. Assuming many of us read it and then engage in conversation with the ghost of Beck... The Metamorphosis of The World is a splending farewell to Ulrich Beck.

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From other countries

Gary J.

5.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinary perspective on the place of environmental destruction in ...

Reviewed in Canada on 17 January 2017

Verified Purchase

An extraordinary perspective on the place of environmental destruction in post-modern society. Beck says it is here and a necessary ingredient in the neo-liberal economic paradigm - Environmental destruction is part of our way of doing business, eg oil. What then are we to do?

One person found this helpful

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Steve Benner

4.0 out of 5 stars Making sense of an increasingly unhinged world

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 June 2016

Ulrich Beck was Professor of Sociology at the University of Munich and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His sociological text, "The Metamorphosis of the World" was incomplete and in preliminary manuscript form only at the the of his sudden death from a heart attack in early 2015. His partner, Elizabeth Beck-Gernsheim, has worked with Beck's former colleagues and collaborators, Anders Blok (Copenhagen) and Sabine Selchow (London) to bring the work to publishable form for Polity Press.

The book's main topic is a proposed remodelling of the way sociologists need to think of and analyse the modern world if they are to make sense of the way it now functions; that the mode of change into which the world has now entered should no longer be viewed in conventional sociological terms of transformational, revolutionary or evolutionary but rather as metamorphosis -- the author's suggested term for a world undergoing complicated spontaneous (and irreversible) emergence into something new, unknown and unplanned. This change is not the result of deliberate policy or design anywhere, but rather arises as a consequences of undesirable side-effects of the progress of modernity; side-effects (such as climate change) that operate on a global scale and which render obsolete political action and thinking within traditional national boundaries, creating "risk societies" across national and class boundaries and calling into question the legitimacy of nation-state political decision-making.

The book's main intended audience would appear to be principally sociologists themselves, rather than the general public, for whom many of the finer points of the author's argument will be lost, obscured by the opaque and impenetrably precise technical language which the author employs (and not helped by the fact that much of that language is clearly influenced by Beck's German language heritage). That said, however, there remain many revelatory ideas for the lay reader within this volume's 200 pages and anyone prepared to invest the effort in reading it should be well rewarded with much to ponder, not just with regard to the politics of global climate change, but also with regard to digital communities, the politics of invisibility, empowering of the younger generation, the emerging promise of a world of great equality and the power struggles that are likely to arise, as nation-states lose their legitimacy and world cities emerge to become the principal power-houses for global change in the way people view the world and their relationship with it.

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Emily - London

3.0 out of 5 stars There are theoretical nuggets here

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 May 2016

This book opens with drama - the author collapses dead in front of his partner, and his colleague and partner complete what had only been a first draft.

Beck is someone who naturally takes a European theoretical and rhetorical approach in his writing rather than the traditional English empirical and factual style - so it is pretty heavy going. As one reviewer put it, Beck is 'having a debate with himself'. Nevertheless there are nuggets here - striking visual and conceptual metaphors that help you think about the world.

Focusing on his discussion of climate change as one example of metamorphosis, he sees our changing perception of the world as a 'Copernican Turn 2' - the world picture which claimed that the sun was turning round the world always was false, but our perceptions are completely transformed when this becomes our new reality. The realisation of the extent of climate change and what is causing it, completely alters our perception of what is driving history and what is happening around us. "The world is not circulating round the nation, but the nations are circulating around the new fixed stars: 'world' and 'humanity'." The world view growing out of the imperialist Victorian era - that we are masters of the world is reversed, and international action becomes a matter of survival in the world.

He also usefully distinguishes between 'doctrines' and 'spaces of action' - what people think and what they actually do. "Doctrines can be particular and minority-oriented eg anti-cosmopolitan, anti-European, religiously fundamental, ethnic, racist; paces of action on the contrary, are inevitably constituted in a cosmopolitan way. The anti-Europeans actually sit in the European Parliament (otherwise they don't matter at all). The religious anti-modernist fundamentalists celebrate the beheadings of their western hostages on .... digital media platforms ..." Even immobile people are cosmopolitanised because increasingly they have access to knowledge through their mobile phones. result - some of them migrate.

"In sum, metamorphosis is not social change, not transformation, not evolution, not revolution and not crisis. It is a mode of changing the nature of human existence. It signifies the age of side effects. "It shifts us from 'methodological nationalism' to 'methodological cosmopolitanism' because of our interconnectedness and changed awareness of our interconnected dependency on nature.

But after this good start, on climate change the author lapses into a disguised optimism - that the metamorphosis of the world will in the end force international action or catastrophe.

He sees rising sea levels and shifting climate patterns as creating "new world maps whose key lines are not traditional boundaries between nation states and social classes but elevations above sea or river. This is a totally different way of conceptualising the world and our chances of survival within it."

He says "climate change produces a basis sense of ethical and existential violation that creates new norms". It is as dramatic as the catastrophe of the second world war and of Nazism - which produced a never-again reaction and the human rights movement.

"The insight that no nation state can cope alone with the global risk of climate change has become common sense." But he underplays the extent to which the climate inequalities mirror the old inequalities - that drought will affect sub Saharan Africa more than it will affect Europe, that richer nations have greater ability to protect themselves against flooding.

"Climate change could be made into an antidote to war" but economic collapse and mass migration could also precipitate war.

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Noah

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for thinkers or for your sociological research

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 June 2016

This handsome grey hardback with red boards inside is presented in a highly contrasting white sleeve. Text is a readable size business font on a wonderfully white background.

I am so pleased that this book was written because is stands as a testament to the mind and work of Ulrich Beck. An unfinished and unedited version was sent to the publishers a few days before he died unexpectedly of a heart attack, whereupon colleagues have polished it into what it is now - an excellent memorial and a brilliant stand alone discussion of the idea of metamorphosis. It is a world we don't understand anymore, a world that is changing so substantially that we can no longer refer to it as change or even transformation but rather metamorphosis - because what it is becoming is nothing like what it was! he talks of the risks felt by society, the politics of visibility and invisibility, inequality and the good side effects of bad things. This work denotes the thinking of a great mind, discussions between sociologists and it will stretch your own thinking to consider potential outcomes.

This book ends with a really good bibliography which will stimulate further reading or perhaps a little research of your own

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mr_ska

5.0 out of 5 stars Does what some of the very best sociological works do, it makes you see the world afresh from a new perspective.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 June 2016

Let's split the audience for this book into two. We have the sociologists, and we have the general public. The two audiences will get different but overlapping things from the book.

The general public don't read all that many books written by sociologists. There are many reasons for that, but not least is that a significant proportion of sociological works are written in convoluted language. Language that makes the work hard to follow and less than enjoyable to read. The Metamorphosis of the World scores well here in that nearly all of it is written in very accessible plain English, and the way it is structured (e.g. split into parts and subdivided) makes it quite easy to read. Where the book also scores highly is in creating those moments that delight the reader by revealing a totally different way of looking at the world than they are used to. For that if nothing else the book is worth the full five stars.

For the sociology audience there is much to sink the teeth into. Many moments of chains of semiosis being fired off. Many models checked through and compared to what Beck presents. Many questions raised. We get to ponder (and perhaps raise a smile) at the thought of reconfiguring Marx and Hegel from economic determinism and the role of ideas in shaping history (dialectics as shaped by human activity) to the effects of climate change on the environment shaping history. A bold and grand step by Beck. We get to compare and contrast the likes of Bauman's notions on (liquid) modernity with Beck's model of complete transformation. Much to keep us busy. Assuming many of us read it and then engage in conversation with the ghost of Beck... The Metamorphosis of The World is a splending farewell to Ulrich Beck.

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Fallen

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but questionable focus

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 June 2016

Very interesting no doubt but I'm just not wholly covinced by a lot of the 'Brave new world' type assertions. By the time some of the more apocolyptic effects of irrerversable climate change are felt there wont be, I suspect,much rational space left for adapting to change, geographical and cultural redrawing of boundaries etc.

It's an argument that somehow climate change is an inevitable and predictable consequence of human existance and therefore one that should be accepted and worked with. However another school of thought revolves around preventing and minimising this occurrence and that it is and should not be an inevitability. This book raises many interesting questions around this debate but it is also heavily Western centric and to those ends doesn't examine enough the differing problems in a global sense; problems which will impact on all of us.

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Zipster Zeus

5.0 out of 5 stars There is much to enjoy and chew over here

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 June 2016

Beck's untimely death came as a bit of a shock to the European Intelligentsia and his loss is a critical one in the development of 21st century socio-political thought. His work has always been accessible and thought-provoking and the editors of this work- picking up a first draft and knocking it into publishable shape- have done a grand job at maintaining the tone and quality of thought Beck's other works have always entailed.

There is much to enjoy and chew over here as Beck considers social, economic and political change and charts how the globalised world of liberal capitalism is metamorphising and there are strong, underlying currents of change that even our leaders, increasingly ensconcing themselves as they are in Ivory Towers, are either unaware of, or, critically, unaware of but neither engaging themselves with the issues of change or worse, ignoring them.

If you either an established appreciator of Beck or new to his writing, you will not be disappointed by this fine, final work of his.

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Jago Wells

4.0 out of 5 stars Ulrich Beck's 'The Metamorphosis of the World'

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 May 2016

Ulrick Beck's ambitious 'The Metamorphosis of the World' offers a fascinating account of how geo/physical, political and cultural factors relate to a fast changing physical and social shape of our planet. Using the idea of metamorphosis which a popular online dictionary defines as "a complete change of form, structure, or substance, as transformation by magic or witchcraft.Any complete change in appearance, character, circumstances,a form resulting from any such change.'. Ulrick Beck analyses how change and transformation is a constant reoccuring theme within our world which although can often be seen in a negative context; i.e. in the area of Climate Change, can equally offer simply a new model by which to set our compass.

Although the book is short-just 200 pages- Mr Beck packs plenty of thought provoking material into the work.

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writeallthereviews

4.0 out of 5 stars I think given a re-read I may understand much of his point better, and I'll also be seeking out his other ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 June 2016

I found this to be a challenging read. I understand the author died with the script as a draft only, and this was completed by his partner and colleague post-mortem. I couldn't tell this from the text, and so I have to give a nod to them both for that. It is an accomplished and complex text, and as a layman to sociology, I think I went in a bit above my level with Beck's work.

This being said, with careful cross-referencing (and more than a few glances to online resources to check Beck's references) I found this to be an engaging and relevant read. Beck's concepts of climate change as a world metamorphosis were hard for me to both interpret and agree with. I think given a re-read I may understand much of his point better, and I'll also be seeking out his other writings as I found his work to be most interesting.

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Justin Thyme

3.0 out of 5 stars Metamorphosis

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 June 2016

To begin with, this book is possibly not what you imagine it to be. Beck was a sociologist before his sudden death, so any 'metamorphosis' discussed is in relation to sociological change.

Let's start at the beginning, the book existed as a series of notes, and loose jottings, and the work was then finished by his partner and a former colleague.

Beck's particular talent was in seeing things in a different way to others. There are therefore things that will delight the sociologists, but it will also be of interest to non-sociologists if they can ignore the sometimes convoluted language.

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Claude Forthomme

4.0 out of 5 stars How a Major Thinker Sees Our World

Reviewed in the United States on 1 October 2019

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Not an easy read but an important one. This is how a major thinker sees our world - metamorphosed by climate change into something else, a new world whose contours we can barely fathom out. I am taking a star off simply because this is a specialized work not intended for the average reader. The arguments could have been made more accessible, but there was no attempt to do so. The book is clearly intended for specialists and sociology students.

This said, there's much to be learned from it - and as an economist, I found it a very interesting read, showing how (by what analytical means) sociology as a science is moving to address the planetary issue that many have called the 6th Extinction.

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Clarissa's Blog

5.0 out of 5 stars Beck’s Last Book

Reviewed in the United States on 7 July 2016

The great German philosopher📃 Ulrich Beck died before completing this book. His wife and colleagues had to finish it based on the author’s notes and conversations. As a result, the book ended up being very repetitive. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though. If I had to choose a book by Beck to introduce students to his thinking, I’d pick this one because its repetitiveness will help Beck’s ideas really to get across.

Since the collapse of the nation-state model is inevitable, should we drag it out in order to soften the impact or should we accept the inevitable and move on? Ulrich Beck insists that we have no time to waste because the longer we hang on to the illusion that the nation-state is salvageable, the more time we waste instead of solving the problems of the new world order. The most pressing problems of today – climate change, for instance- will only begin to be addressed when we relinquish the nation-state illusions.

Ulrich Beck’s posthumously published volume is an impassioned plea for us to stop hiding from the erosion of the nation-state model behind right-wing fundamentalism, ultra nationalism or vapid fantasies about bringing back the good old times and to start creating structures of action and collaboration that will transcend the porous national borders just as easily as floods, hurricanes, radioactive clouds, viruses and terrorists do. We can’t allow the agents of our risk to travel faster and lighter than we do.

[📃In Europe, Beck is known as a sociologist, just like Zygmunt Bauman. But a sociologist in Europe is nothing like the useless idiots who call themselves sociologists in the US. Beck and Bauman are the world’s leading thinkers, philosophers, theorists of the nation-state and not the kind of pseudo scholars you can find in American departments of social sciences.]

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Russell Fanelli

4.0 out of 5 stars A difficult and demanding work that challenges us to answer the question: What world are we actually living in?

Reviewed in the United States on 6 June 2016

Sadly, the German sociologist Ulrich Beck died on January 1, 2015, before he could finish his new book, The Metamorphosis of the World. In the Forward of the book, his wife Elizabeth Beck-Gernsheim, a noted sociologist in her own right, says that she had enough of her husband's notes and with help from colleagues and editors was able to complete Beck’s important work.

For my readers it is important to note that The Metamorphosis of the World is a scholarly work a general audience will find challenging to read. That is not to say that I don’t recommend it for a general audience, for Beck gives us enough help to understand the complicated problems involved in rethinking change in the modern world, particularly change brought about by climate change. This is a difficult and demanding work that requires close and careful attention.

Beck does not leave us in doubt about his mission and purpose. He tells us immediately that “The world is unhinged…. And it has gone mad.” He asks the question, “What world are we actually living in?” His answer is: “in the metamorphosis of the world.”

When most of my readers think of metamorphosis, the lowly caterpillar turning into the magnificent butterfly is what immediately comes to mind. Perhaps more appropriate for Beck’s book is the transformation of Gregor Samsa from a human being into a bug in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. One thing is certain; we can expect Beck to show us that we can expect changes in our world that will astonish us as much as a caterpillar turning into a butterfly or Gregor Samsa turning into a bug. For example he states that “In fact, in times of climate change, those who just want to breathe local air will suffocate.” He also states that “Those who eat only locally will starve.”

Beck summarizes his ideas nicely for us when he says, “In sum, metamorphosis is not social change, not evolution, not revolution and not crisis. It is a mode of changing the nature of human existence. It signifies the age of side effects. It challenges our way of being in the world.”

This is heady stuff, exciting, but not rash or impetuous. A few chapter titles should give my readers a good idea about what to expect from Beck. In his chapter “Being God,” Beck reminds us how far we have come when we consider test tube babies and “the ever more extensive manufacturability of human life.” Have we already arrived at a Brave New World? I think Beck would argue “Yes.” In the chapter on How Climate Change Might Save the World Beck says that “Climate change is creating existential moments of decision. This happens unintended, unseen, unwanted and is neither goal-oriented nor ideologically driven.” Beck does not believe these changes should signal the apocalypse, but the chance to engineer “future structures, norms, and beginnings.”

The first audience for this book will be scholars at the university who want to understand Ulrich Beck’s last thoughts about the remarkable changes occurring globally in the 21st Century. Ambitious general readers who don’t mind intellectual challenge may also find this book thought provoking and rewarding, although I don’t think we will find it on the best seller list any time soon. Recommended with noted reservations.

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julesinrose

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking

Reviewed in the United States on 7 July 2016

First, let me preface this with the fact that I am not an academe. I found this book rough going and could only read it in small bits, mulling it over, wondering if I'd missed the point, and going back. And I'm not really done; there's so much food for thought here, and whole swathes of chapters that felt too opaque for this reader.

Yet. . . having never bern exposed to Beck's work before, I was at time nearly thrilled with the ideas. Some of the writing isn't so academic - it's nearly conversational - and it was refreshing in the extreme to read his point of view. We, outside of academia, are comfronted with quite stereotyped visions of this world we are living in. "Left wing," "right wing," "libertarian," etc. . . and nary a real thinker.

I agree with Beck that we are in a metamorphosis of the world. It is happening no matter what our personal opinions are. Though this book is tough for a non-academic, I recommend it to anyone who is not looking for answers, but to make sense of the seemingly senseless age we are living in. I will not synopse the book's ideas as others have and I have nothing to add. Dipping into this book is as refreshing as dipping one's toes into a cool stream in summer. This world needs some great thinkers;too bad they are mostly writing in academic obscurity (to us "regular folk") and/or have passed on.

I will add that I did not entirely agree with Beck's analysis (as I had a decidedly more Marxist point of view) but that did not stop me from finding this book thought provoking.

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Sierra Gentleheart

3.0 out of 5 stars Metamorphosis is the easy part

Reviewed in the United States on 27 July 2016

This difficult book was written for a specialized audience. It is not for a general reader, no matter how motivated that reader is to understand Ulrich Beck's ideas. The language is opaque and convoluted. While Beck was a highly regarded German sociologist, it seems that the editors who prepared the volume for publication could have done much more to make the ideas comprehensible. And about those ideas. They are creative, innovative, and wildly forward-looking. But they are not easy to grasp. I felt from start to end that I had entered a society that knew the secret handshake whereas I not only did not know it, but could not grasp it. Oddly labeled concepts like "risk society," "second modernity," and "reflexive modernization" are just the beginning. I got those. I grasped the central idea of metamorphosis. But I'm still wrestling with the challenge of the murkiness of the communication. I will read it again as soon as I get time, but at this point this general reader cannot award it more than three stars.

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TerraTerrain

4.0 out of 5 stars I liked this book a lot but found it took me ...

Reviewed in the United States on 19 July 2016

I liked this book a lot but found it took me a while to finish, that being said I would still recommend it to all even if it isn't really written for the general public and can take some time to get into. This is more of an academic text, really an unfinished manuscript that was pieced together after the author's death, which makes it somewhat unique in that regard. I do always wonder if all of this is exactly as Beck would have wanted to publish since ideas do evolve so much before they reach the final work that you want to share with the public. I think he takes an interesting viewpoint on climate change and appreciate the insight this book provided.

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Bryan Newman

5.0 out of 5 stars A lot deeper than I was hoping to get into the subject

Reviewed in the United States on 28 July 2016

This is a posthumous book from a German academic. It is dense, pedantic and rich in mind challenging philosophy. Basically everything I was not looking for in this book. I was looking for a far more mainstream book describing the changes of our world through climate change. I slogged through the first 30% of the book and had to abandon it, which is something I rarely do. I appreciate the level of thought and some of the passages. I often enjoy thought provoking books but just couldn't get into this.

The book is impressive, but beyond what I am looking for. Putting this review out there to make sure potential buyers know that they are getting into a deep and challenging read.

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sanoe.net

4.0 out of 5 stars A good unexpectedness

Reviewed in the United States on 31 July 2016

Like many books of the Polity line, Ulrich Beck's "The Metamorphosis of the World" is for a fine tuned audience. One that knows the subject matter and the terminology. I like to take a chance on Polity books because when I do understand it, I feel enlightened; when I don't get it, well, I give myself a pat on the back for trying.

In this case, there were patches that flew past me, but there are stretches where I did sync up on Beck's ideas of a changing world with an interesting focus on how bad can be positive. I didn't expect that and I found it refreshing. On that aspect alone, I liked the book.

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Neal Reynolds

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty deep stuff, but worth reading by the more scholarly

Reviewed in the United States on 15 August 2016

I have to admit that this book is over my head, a bit too much for my ;83 year old brain to comprehend. However, I still give this a high rating because I sense enough of what is being said to realize its importance. I do of course recommend it mainly for academics. Collegians studying sociology and philosophy will especially benefit. Many a college paper could be inspired by Ulrich Beck's writing.

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R. A. Barricklow(Scaramouche)

2.0 out of 5 stars I Found My Reading of The Metamorphosis of the World In Near Total Diagreement With The Author's.

Reviewed in the United States on 6 July 2016

This was a preliminary, unedited, and unfinished manuscript that was put together. From the very beginning of reading the current edition I found myself criticizing it left and right. The author declaring himself bankrupt from deriving meaning of the global events unfolding before his eyes on television. One, the television is an idiot box and the news derived from it is propaganda at best. Two, bankrupt is the key word because the banking system worldwide is bankrupt and is currently being kept afloat by fraud. Three, climate change is not due to CO2 but is the result of cyclical change of our sun at the center of the solar system. And finally, the metaphor of metamorphosis is being used as bearing all the hallmarks of a foreign body[actual words used by author].

Metamorphosis is actually close to being an excellent metaphor. The reason being is, that inherent in civilization are two different body plans/body blueprints: public power/political power versus private power/economic power. Ideally they check each other in ways that benefit both. In democracy the political power can establish the building of infrastructure: in roads and bridges; communications systems; public heath system; utilizes of power; and more - at near cost. The businesses would use these without having to pay for roads, health care, high interest[public banking], and more. These businesses would be more competitive as those costs were already born by the public. Public power would be like an Aladdin's Lamp holding the financial genie within the lamp/nation state[borders]. The financial wizards would be regulated[Glass-Steagall Act Banking Act of 1933]. But Clinton released the financial genie by deregulating economic power and the subsequent corruption skyrocketed.

I kept reading and trying to follow the author's reasoning but found myself totally disagreeing and/or at loss to his meaning. For instance, in describing our mass media he introduced the concept of landscapes of communications and public bads. He stated that the mass media has long been, and today is still largely, a world of nations. Again I disagree. President Clinton and Robert Rubin both quipped about how quaint the concept of Nation States were. That the economic powers had basically captured the nation states and defanged them[reregulated and/or bought off those in charge of enforcing what's left of financial regulations/laws]. There are no public airwaves; the airwaves/media is privately owned. In fact,. what's going on is the economic power is privatizing anything and everything publically owned. Your governments are being corporatized. Your public water sources - privatized. Your public education- privatized. Your highways & byways - privatized. Your public heath systems - privatized. That's what happening.

A similar sea change happened when capitalism replaced feudalism. Now that financial capitalism is eating industrial capitalism's lunch - we are going back to the future/electronic-computerized feudalism. In this dystopian future there are digitized platform monopolies[like google] and this digitization is putting the world's growing inequality gaps on steroids.

Economic Power is waging a class war - and the 99.99%'ers are loosing.

In my reading of The Metamorphosis of the World I found my disagreements with the author's world viewpoints at crosswords.

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