This panoramic analysis of the condition of Western societies has been hailed as a classic. This first English edition has taken its place as a core text of contemporary sociology alongside earlier typifications of society as postindustrial and current debates about the social dimensions of the postmodern.
Underpinning the analysis is the notion of the `risk society′. The changing nature of society′s relation to production and distribution is related to the environmental impact as a totalizing, globalizing economy based on scientific and technical knowledge becomes more central to social organization and social conflict.

Three prominent social thinkers discuss how modern society is undercutting its formations of class, stratum, occupations, sex roles, the nuclear family, and more. Reflexive modernization, or the way one kind of modernization undercuts and changes another, has wide ranging implications for contemporary social and cultural theory, as this provocative book demonstrates.

This important book by one of Europe's leading social and political theorists draws together key essays which argue that a new frame of reference is needed to understand the world risk society in which we live today. Beck focuses on ecological and technological questions of risk, and their sociological and political implications. In doing so, he discusses and answers some of the criticisms provoked by his earlier and much cited work on risk society.Beck argues that we now have an "earth politics" which we did not have some years ago, and that it can be understood in terms of the dynamics and contradictions of a world risk society. It poses questions such as: What is the environment? What is nature? What is wilderness? What is human? Questions which have to be reposed and reconsidered in a transnational setting, even if the answers are elusive.These essays form the basis of Beck's "Cosmopolitan Manifesto" which addresses the dialectic of global and local questions which do not fit into national politics. By recognizing that diversity, individualism and scepticism are written into our culture, we can form the basis of a new social cohesion, a new cosmopolitanism in which the creative uncertainty of freedom replaces the hierarchical certainty of difference. Beck encourages political experimentation to form a global morality of shared risk which could shape powerful cosmopolitan movements in the future.This book is an important text for students and scholars in sociology and politics. It will also be read by a wider audience interested in the key social and political questions of our time.

Individualization argues that we are in the midst of a fundamental change in the nature of society and politics. This change hinges around two processes: globalization and individualization. The book demonstrates that individualization is a structural characteristic of highly differentiated societies, and does not imperil social cohesion, but actually makes it possible. Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim argue that it is vital to distinguish between the neo-liberal idea of the free-market individual and the concept of individualization. The result is the most complete discussion of individualization currently available, showing how individualization relates to basic social rights and also paid employment; and concluding that in as much as basic rights are internalized and everyone wants to or must be economically active, the spiral of individualization destroys the given foundations of social co-existence.

In this new book, Ulrich Beck develops his now widely used concepts of second modernity, risk society and reflexive sociology into a radical new sociological analysis of the cosmopolitan implications of globalization. Beck draws extensively on empirical and theoretical analyses of such phenomena as migration, war and terror, as well as a range of literary and historical works, to weave a rich discursive web in which analytical, critical and methodological themes intertwine effortlessly.
Contrasting a 'cosmopolitan vision' or 'outlook' sharpened by awareness of the transformative and transgressive impacts of globalization with the 'national outlook' neurotically fixated on the familiar reference points of a world of nations-states-borders, sovereignty, exclusive identities-Beck shows how even opponents of globalization and cosmopolitanism are trapped by the logic of reflexive modernization into promoting the very processes they are opposing.
A persistent theme running through the book is the attempt to recover an authentically European tradition of cosmopolitan openness to otherness and tolerance of difference. What Europe needs, Beck argues, is the courage to unite forms of life which have grown out of language, skin colour, nationality or religion with awareness that, in a radically insecure world, all are equal and everyone is different.

Twenty years ago Ulrich Beck published Risk Society, a book that called our attention to the dangers of environmental catastrophes and changed the way we think about contemporary societies. During the last two decades, the dangers highlighted by Beck have taken on new forms and assumed ever greater significance. Terrorism has shifted to a global arena, financial crises have produced worldwide consequences that are difficult to control and politicians have been forced to accept that climate change is not idle speculation. In short, we have come to see that today we live in a world at risk. A new feature of our world risk society is that risk is produced for political gain. This political use of risk means that fear creeps into modern life. A need for security encroaches on our liberty and our view of equality. However, Beck is anything but an alarmist and believes that the anticipation of catastrophe can fundamentally change global politics. We have the opportunity today to reconfigure power in terms of what Beck calls a 'cosmopolitan material politics’. World at Risk is a timely and far-reaching analysis of the structural dynamics of the modern world, the global nature of risk and the future of global politics by one of the most original and exciting social thinkers writing today.

In this important book, Ulrich Beck - one of the leading social thinkers in Europe today - examines how work has become unstable in the modern world and presents a new vision for the future. Beck begins by describing how the traditional work society, with its life-long job paths, is giving way to a much less stable world in which skills can be suddenly devalued, jobs obliterated, welfare cover reduced or eliminated. The West would appear to be heading towards a social structure of ambiguity and multiple activity that has hitherto been more characteristic of the developing world. But what appears to be the end of traditional working practices can also be seen as an opportunity to develop new ideas and models for work in the twenty-first century. Beck's alternative vision is centred on the concept of active citizens democratically organized in local, and increasingly also regional or transnational, networks. Against the threat of social exclusion, everyone can and must have a right to be included in a new definition and distribution of work. This will involve constant movement between formal employment (with a major reduction in working hours) and forms of self-organized artistic, cultural and political 'civil labour', providing equal access to comprehensive social protection. The aim must be to turn insecurity around, so that it becomes a positive and enriching discontinuity of life. Drawing on his earlier work on risk and reflexive modernization, The Brave New World of Work is also closely linked to his studies on globalization and individualization. These processes are part of the same challenge upon which a politics of modernity must now base itself. Not only the future of work, but also the very survival of democracy and the welfare state will depend on the development of a newly committed and 'multi-active' transnational citizenship. This book will be of great interest to second- and third-year students in sociology, politics, geography and the social sciences generally. It will also appeal to a broader audience interested in the issues and debates surrounding the changing nature of work.

　　愛情經典詮釋

 

　　愛情是私生活中的神祇，是宗教消失後的宗教，是所有信仰盡頭的終極信仰。本書為德國社會學大師對愛情的經典詮釋，從社會學角度重新檢視愛情的現代風貌：一幅隱身在愛情、家庭與個人自由之間利害關係的衝突圖像。

　

　　愛，世俗的宗教

 

　　愛是兩個人的徹底民主形式，

　　愛是全然個人的自我負責。

 

　　愛就是與自我相逢，是再創由你我組成的世界，

　　是瑣碎而不帶道德禁令的浪漫主義，

　　正變成一種大眾現象：愛，世俗的宗教。

 

　　那些期待找到愛的人，都正尋求此時此刻的救贖，

　　所謂的「彼岸」就在此世，

　　有它自己的聲音、形體與意志。

　　宗教告訴我們有死後的生命，

　　愛卻說，生命在死之前。

 

　　如果不正是因為另一個人使我成為我，

　　我為何要將另一人據為己有呢？

　　不過這正包括了一個佔據的特殊模式，

　　另一人的自由本身正是我們想要擁有的。

 

　　現代男女身不由己地追求正確的生活方式，嘗試同居、離婚或契約婚姻，努力調和家庭和事業、愛情與婚姻，新的父職與母職，友情與交友。當代的愛情可以說是在階級鬥爭之後的「身分鬥爭」。

 

　　本書從社會學角度來審視愛情，將個別的生命史經驗放在較廣泛的社會秩序中來理解，或許更可以領悟到：混亂與正常都屬於秩序的一部份，正常或穩定代表著理想的狀態，混亂或不穩定則是現代人不得不面對的現實，愛情的正常性混亂，就是這兩種矛盾的統一。