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From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society: New Theories of the Contemporary World

From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society: New Theories of the Contemporary World

by KrishanKumar (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 1995

    $4.77
Synopsis

In the second edition of this classic study, Krishan Kumar introduces and assesses the rival claims of three theories crucial to an understanding of contemporary social theory: the information society; post-Fordism; and post-modernism. Explaining how these theories developed and why they have held such an appeal, the author provides the most readable and evenly-balanced account of three very different, but overlapping paradigms. In a new and substantial introduction, Kumar places the three key approaches within the context of contemporary discourse on globalization. From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand contemporary theories of social, cultural, and economic change.

$4.77

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 253
 Publisher: Blackwell
Published: 15 Aug 1995
ISBN 10: 0631185593
ISBN 13: 9780631185598

Media Reviews
Ideas of modernity and post-modernity are used constantly, but often all too casually. Krishan Kumar places these ideas in historical context, and draws out the key intellectual issues that are at stake in giving them meaning. From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society is especially helpful in clarifying the roots of today's talk of post-modernity in earlier analyses of economic and technological transformations. Kumar's judgement is measured, his prose clear and his analysis consistently informative. --Craig J. Calhoun A brief review can't do justice to this learned and elegantly written book. Kumar's organizing question - Have Western societies entered a new era? - and his manner of arriving at an answer by interrogating the central tenets of the Information Society, Post-Fordism, and Post-Modernism yield a richly informative and thought-provoking study. (Contemporary Sociology) This wide-ranging and accessible book provides a thoughtful, informative overview of these rapidly expanding literatures and a significant contribution to ongoing debates on the predicament of modern capitalism in the last decade of the 20th century. The most significant contribution of Kumar's book is his sustained analysis of postmodernity, a concept that has been associated with some of the most polemical and obscure academic debates of recent years. Kumar promises to navigate a course through these treacherous waters, and the analysis that results is at once lucid and erudite. One of the merits of Kumar's book is to situate each theory of contemporary sociology within the same sociohistorical configuration it strives to grasp. (American Journal of Sociology) This is a fluent and informative study that is enjoyable to read. It will make an important contribution to understanding this often obscure theoretical terrain. (British Journal of Sociology) This superb book, which has been essential reading since its original publication, now includes a major new introductory chapter, covering theories of globalization and multiple modernities. Kumar manages to be both judicious and provocative, comprehensive and clear, and magisterial and readable. The book is an indispensable guide to these highly contested yet inescapable attempts to theorize modern societies. --William Outhwaite, University of Sussex From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society has established itself as an incomparable classic of modern sociology. The second edition extends the range of the original text to address new problems of globalism, and thereby integrates the globalization debate into concerns about postmodernity. A singular achievement. --Bryan Turner, Cambridge University
Author Bio
Krishan Kumar is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia. He was previously Professor of Social and Political Thought at the University of Kent, Canterbury. Since publishing the first edition of From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society (1995), he has co-edited Public and Private in Thought and Practice (1997) and written 1989: Revolutionary Ideas and Ideals (2001) and The Making of English National Identity (2003).