Liquid Times

Liquid Times by Zygmunt Bauman

The passage from ‘solid’ to ‘liquid’ modernity has created a new and unprecedented setting for individual life pursuits, confronting individuals with a series of challenges never before encountered. Social forms and institutions no longer have enough time to solidify and cannot serve as frames of reference for human actions and long-term life plans, so individuals have to find other ways to organise their lives. They have to splice together an unending series of short-term projects and episodes that don’t add up to the kind of sequence to which concepts like ‘career’ and ‘progress’ could meaningfully be applied. Such fragmented lives require individuals to be flexible and adaptable – to be constantly ready and willing to change tactics at short notice, to abandon commitments and loyalties without regret and to pursue opportunities according to their current availability. In liquid modernity the individual must act, plan actions and calculate the likely gains and losses of acting (or failing to act) under conditions of endemic uncertainty. Zygmunt Bauman’s brilliant writings on liquid modernity have altered the way we think about the contemporary world. In this short book he explores the sources of the endemic uncertainty which shapes our lives today and, in so doing, he provides the reader with a brief and accessible introduction to his highly original account, developed at greater length in his previous books, of life in our liquid modern times.

"Liquid Times and Living on Borrowed Times offer deep insights into post-modern lifeSpecifically, it exposes the essential social and philosophical changes that lie at the heart of the conditions that led to the global financial crisis ... the ideas in these books are fascinating."
Satyajit Das, Willmot.com

Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) was Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Universities of Leeds and Warsaw.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780745639871
ISBN 10	0745639879
Title	Liquid Times
Author	Zygmunt Bauman
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Year published	2007-02-27
Number of pages	128
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable