This authoritative and revealing book provides the first sociological examination of postmodernism. Lash examines the differences between modernism and postmodernism, providing a clear explanation of why postmodernism is important.

This book is Lash's most comprehensive statement in social and cultural theory. It is a book addressed to sociologists and philosophers, to students of urban life, modern languages, cultural studies and the visual arts.

Alongside the Enlightenment has emerged another modernity. This second modernity has - in opposition to the Enlightenment rationality of progress, order, homogeneity and cognition - initiated a different rationality of uncertainty, transience, experiment, and the unknowable. This second, this other modernity, is present in notions of 'difference' and 'reflexivity'...

Modernity and Identity is a groundbreaking collective work which announces a radical new departure within contemporary debates on modernism and postmodernism.

While dominant conceptions of both modernism and postmodernism are centered around motions of statis and fixity, for most of the otherwise quite diverse writers in this book, modernity is a matter of movement, of flux, of change and of unpredictability.

Modernity and postmodernity are shown to mean, not the 'end of the subject' but the transformation and creation of new forms of subjectivity. Anthropological...

This ground-breaking book addresses transformations in the understanding of time and the generation and degeneration of value at the cutting edge of modernity and postmodernity.

Telling the story of how material objects such as watches and sportswear have become powerful cultural symbols, and how the production of symbols in the form of globally-recognized brands has become a central goal of capitalism, this book is suitable for students and scholars across the social sciences.

Telling the story of how material objects such as watches and sportswear have become powerful cultural symbols, and how the production of symbols in the form of globally-recognized brands has become a central goal of capitalism, this book is suitable for students and scholars across the social sciences.

Are there any cultural universals left? Does multiculturalism inevitably involve a slide into moral relativism? This timely and insightful book examines questions of politics and identity in the age of multicultures. It draws together the contribution of outstanding contributors such as Fraser, Honneth, O'Neill, Bauman, Lister, Gilroy and De Swann to explore how difference and multiculturalism take on the arguments of universalist humanism. The approach taken derives from the traditions of cultural sociology and cultural studies rather than political science and philosophy.

The...

This penetrating book raises questions about how power and resistance operate in contemporary society. Scott Lash argues that critique must take place from within information flows, rather than from the safety of academic detachment' and that information is power. The book identifies a central contradiction of the information society, that is, the more intelligent and rational that the information society becomes, the more irrational may be the consequences. Written by one of the most celebrated commentators on power and culture, the book is a major testament on the prospects of intellectual...

This penetrating book raises questions about how power and resistance operate in contemporary society. Scott Lash argues that critique must take place from within information flows, rather than from the safety of academic detachment' and that information is power. The book identifies a central contradiction of the information society, that is, the more intelligent and rational that the information society becomes, the more irrational may be the consequences. Written by one of the most celebrated commentators on power and culture, the book is a major testament on the prospects of intellectual...

In Spaces of Culture an international group of scholars examines the implications of questions such as: What is culture? What is the relationship between social structure and culture in a globalized and networked world? Do critical perspectives still apply, or does the speed and complexity of cultural production demand new forms of analysis?

They explore the key themes in social theory: the nation state; the city; modernity and reflexivity; post-Fordism and the spatial logic of the informational city. The contributors go on to analyze the public sphere, questioning the reductive...