In Search of Politics

By: ZYGMUNT BAUMAN (Universities of Leeds and Warsaw)

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• Table of Contents
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Description

We live in a world which no longer questions itself, which lives from one day to another managing successive crises and struggling to brace itself for new ones, without knowing where it is going and without trying to plan the itinerary. And everything important in our lives - livelihood, human bonds, partnerships, neighbourhood, goals worth pursuing and dangers to avoid - feels transient, precarious, vulnerable, insecure, uncertain, risky. Is there a connection between the shape of the world we inhabit and the way we live our lives? Exploring that connection, and finding out just how close it is, is the main concern of this book.<

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* Exam copies only available to lecturers for whom the book may be suitable as a course text.
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Reviews

"With In Search of Politics, the prolific Zygmunt Bauman joins other European social theorists in seeking to illuminate the current political landscape...The account is at times persuasive and never less than eloquent" Sam Pryke, The Times Higher Education Supplement

'Zygmunt Bauman can be counted among those giants of sociology - C. Wright Mills, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber - who are bound together not by a shared ideological or disciplinary alignment, but by a profound and moral passion. I do not employ the term "moral" in the commonly used sense of "judgmental", but to describe their ability to define the spirit of the age, to ask cutting questions about society's direction, warn of dangers and perceive opportunities ... In Search of Politics is a plea for the return of politics, in the classic sense, politics as a sense of membership of a polis, a community with shared tasks.' Contemporary Politics

'Bauman's thesis is accessible, persuasive and vividly presented ... it flows with ideas and passion.' Sociology

'The book has a clear normative approach, which the strength of Bauman's arguments and the force of his writing make quite compelling ... The great value of this book is Bauman's unique ability to critique the modern categories and values, without at the same time rejecting them out of hand.' Peace Research

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Table of Contents

Introduction.

1. In Search of Public Space.

2. In Search of Agency.

Excursus 1: Ideology in the Postmodern World. Excursus.

Excursus 2: Tradition and Autonomy in the Postmodern World. Excursus.

Excursus 3: Postmodernity and Moral and Cultural Crisis.

3. In Search of Vision.

Notes.

Index.

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Author Information

Zygmunt Bauman Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Universities of Leeds and Warsaw. He was awarded the Theodor W. Adorno Prize for 1998.

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