In this book, three social thinkers discuss the implications of reflexive modernization for social and cultural theory today. Ulrich Beck's vision of the risk society has already become influential. Beck offers a new elaboration of his basic ideas, connecting reflexive modernization with new issues to do with the state and political organization. Giddens offers an in-depth examination of the connections between institutional reflexivity and the de-traditionalizing of the modern world. We are entering, he argues, a phase of the development of a global society. A global society is not a world...