In this excellent overview of the great social experiment known as modern "relationships," Giddens, a leading theorist of political sociology, turns his attention to the world of the personal lives. It is Giddens' thesis that women have been the revolutionaries in a sea change that has occurred within the nature and structure of the family. As women emanicipated themselves from traditional structures of family, they were forced to be pioneers in understanding themselves and their relationships. Using Foucault and Freud as a starting point, Giddens explores the differences between the sexes in the light of modernity, dialectically comparing them with later feminist writers. The contrast allows Giddens to synthesize views into something compatible with his larger view of society in microcosm. Giddens introduces the idea of "pure relationship", a relationship freely entered into for mutual benefit for as long as it is beneficial as a contrast with earlier notions of marriage as role and obligation. He also hypothesizes the eventual replacement of romantic love, as defined by the view (or illusion) that there is a "special someone", with what he calls "confluent love" locating the specialness in the relationship itself. Giddens feels this change is part of a radical "democratization" of society going on at its most micro levels.

Some of this will be "old news" for those familiar with feminist literature, but for most people it will be an integrative look at what most of of have been experiencing without understanding. It may be a little too literate or scholarly for the mass market, but most people will find it interesting, if occasionally difficult. (One does not need to understand Foucault to get anything out of the book, however that particular chapter might be wasted.) There are only two shortcomings: [1] A general tendency to characterize men as the cultural laggards (though probably deservedly) despite a good section on the men's movement. I believe he could have explored more of the contradictions of men's current roles, as done by the more recent book by Susan Faludi- "Stiffed", and [2] a failure to explore what, if any, connection this micro "democratization" has with the increasingly hierarchial and globalized society at large. All in all, though, an excellent work.

Giddens' text provides excellent tools with which to analyze many other books. While I adamantly reject his definition of modernity as ethnocentric and marginally racist, his theories have some merit when removed from his Euro-centric perspective.
"'Modernity' refers to modes of social life or organization which emerged in Europe from about the seventeenth century onward and which subsequently became more or less worldwide in their influence." No, modernity is often used in academia to mean simple the current era or whatever era the author happens to be living in. It need not mean a particular social mode of life. Moreover, what occurred in Europe and in the United States from about the seventeenth century onward was nothing more than the immoral, unscrupulous use of firearms to ensure people throughout the world agree with unfair trade agreements forced on them, political and bureaucratic structures which were likewise reinforced by weapons. The current era is another issue altogether.
That said, some of the concepts that Giddens presents have value. Face work, expert systems, and the scope and pace of change do make the current era remarkably different from previous centuries. Time-space distanciation and compression, the disembedding and re-embedding of social systems and cultural paradigms, the transmission of symbolic tokens and their disconnection from their original culturally embedded values provide not only a framework, but also provide an excellent vocabulary with which to examine the modern era. These descriptions are particularly applicable to electronic media - where the pace of change in technology has been exponentially accelerated. Time and space take on new meanings in cyberspace or when watching the nightly news with images of Afghanistan refugees coming into living rooms throughout the Americans and Asia. These aspects of Giddens' work make it worthwhile despite its obvious faults.

In dealing the "consequences of modernity" (especially the sombre side, the dangers and risks), I am sure Giddens himself belongs to the "radical engagement" kind he describes. Not only trying to have some impact through his analysis of the situation to date, but practically participate in the "power arena" -as we know he is an important "mastermind" for the British ruling Labor Party. Thus his argument about getting into power to "make thing done" has its trail. And I can't agree more on this standpoint. However, I think he could have paid more attention to the uneven relationship between Western and Non-Western countries within modernity or globalization.

Modernity is a western project in terms of the ways of life fostered by the transformative agencies of nation-state and capitalism, according to Giddens. This is "because of the power they(the West) have generated"(p174). On the other hand, modernity is NOT particularly Western from the standpoint of its globalising tendencies because "there are no others"(p175). Hence, it seems clear that the Non-Western world can only "accept" what introduced to them by a "powerful brother". The helplessness is just identical to the situation of lay population facing the expert systems-but only the latter is detailed analyzed in this book.

Furthermore, I don't really understand why Giddens makes such an effort to discuss the unique of "trust" in modern era. I mean of course we have to "trust" the abstract systems. But it is the "abstract systems" not "trust" that results our difference from the pre-modern world. A per-modern person had to trust the rules of the society and something he didn't know as well (there were doctors and fortunetellers)!

The persuasive framework to grasp modernity

This is the most popular title among Giddens¡¯s books. There are several reasons for the attractiveness.
1.It was the lecture held in Stanford. So the writing style is easy enough to grip the whole line. It¡¯s hard to say his earlier theoretical books like ¡®Central Problems of Social Theory¡¯, ¡®The Constitution of Society¡¯ are easy to read through, though it¡¯s the nature of theoretical works of sociology, unfortunately.
2.Timing: This book was published in 1990 when the chats of postmodernism or postmodernity waned for its unproductivity, while the discussion of globalization was about to wax. Giddens¡¯s countering of postmodernity and theoretical founding of globalization is so persuasive. The framing of modernity in terms of ¡®time-space distanciation which surfaced first in this book, still dominates the talk of globalization.
3.He founded the seemingly macro-matter of globalization on the micro-level with the concept of trust. A set of ancillary concepts are accompanied to support this foundation like ontological security, risk, reflexivity, and abstract system. His linking between micro- and macro-level seems so convincing.
The overall outline of his framework in this book based on the concept of trust. Trust came from Erickson. So it has the psychological connotation. It¡¯s not hard to capture the gist. But I prefer more friendly version to social sciences. Let¡¯s consider it with the concept of ¡®expectation¡¯. We impose some expectation on every object we encounter; mother, friend, colleague, mug, pen, computer. We expect what my friend would talk or behave before his action or what this mug would like before buying it. What we expect for something is called the expectation. In other word, we assign the identity to those object. Object is everything we can allot name. My self-identity is no exception. Myself is also object which should have some expectation. Everything including myself on the time-space has identity. Trust is the name given to this process. Let¡¯s suppose the nature of time-space changed (time-space distanciation). Then our trust should change accordingly. This is the nub of Giddens¡¯s micro-foundation of modernity in this book.

WHENEVER YOU LIST COLLECTED WRITINGS or ESSAYS, YOU SHOULD LIST THE *CONTENTS* OF THE BOOK, so that buyers can compare other published collections of the same author's work. I tried to enter this in the CORRECTIONS, but the format was so rigid I couldn't just comment (why don't you change that?), and this was the only way I could see to get a message to you. Thank you.

Voltaire (1694-1778)- glamorous, irreverent, immensely successful in his time - was one of the most prolific writers who ever lived: His collected works comprise 50 volumes. In order to get to know this most famous writer of the Enlightenment one needs a guide who picks examples from this immense body of work. Today Voltaire's wonderful little novel "Candide" tends to overshadow the rest of his literary activity, and in my opinion that is a great pity. This selection will introduce you to the Voltaire I love best: The witty philosopher of common sense and tolerance. In his essays he manages to express the ideas of the enlightenment in an elegant clarity which is unsurpassed in any literature. - Don't let others tell you who Voltaire is; feel the passion and the wisdom of one of the greatest writers ever.

I think this book gives a very good account of Voltaire's life and offers many an insight into the writer's views on, notably, the Britons. It's -to say the least - amusing to view seventeenth-century English society through the eyes of an eminent French intellectual.

This book may give you the "meat and potatoes" of sociology but unfortunetly it doesn't give you more than that. If your goal is to put some of your curiosity into perspective this is propably the book. But if you want to understand the field of sociology as an academic discipline this suffers from not focusing on theories but on themes. It will spark the "sociological imagination" but I will not read the book again and again.

This book may be helpful in high school but for college and up you need to supplement (or replace) it with one which focus on theories and theorists like "Classical & Modern Social Theory" by Heine Andersen and Lars Bo Kaspersen which is the best introduction to theorists from Marx to Giddens IMO. THIS is the book that will follow me always.

This [2nd Edition] is about as thick a book as some bibles are, but as bibles come also on pocket sizes, so should this book! It gives great previews on different aspects of everyday life, but doesn't offer anything new. This is like a referendum into sociology's different sides in whole. I wonder if the edition 3 will be as much "copy and paste" from edition 2 as this edition is from the first edition...

This book makes me love sociology, and understand it. I love the down to earth examples from real life situations, such as people working in health clubs and people on the streets and the way this gets used to introduce the meat and potatoes of sociology.

In Britain, it's become commonplace to dismiss the Third Way as an ideologically incoherent mess: a label in search of an ideology to attatch itself to. Tony Giddens doesn't do much to clear things up: in fact, this book is a prime exemplar of the sort of the woolly, not-quite-thoroughly-thought-out rhetoric that gives New Labour a bad name.

Much of this THIN tome is spent on self-evident bromides. Environmental degradation = bad. Solidarity = good. The distinction between left and right ain't what it used to be. You don't say! The rest is taken up by pious good intentions about social democracy renewing itself. Any second-rate political speech writer could've come up with roughly the same set of homilies.

Giddens is a brilliant sociologist, but this book never gets off the ground. It's too bad, really, because Blair style new-new-leftism really could use a coherent defense from a skilfull theorist. Instead, what it gets out of this book is a half baked homily that betrays an alarming degree of political naivete for such an eminent social scientists. It's a mess, really.

"Trying to in down an exact meaning in all this" wrote the Economist back in 1998 "is like wrestling an inflatable man. If you get a grip on one limb, all the hot air rushes to another."

Two years on, and the inflatable man is back. There is no shortage of hot air rushing from place to place in this sequal to The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy. There's almost nothing to disagree with here -- which is part of the problem.

The story so far goes something like this: the good guys in politics are called 'social democrats'. They care about things like equality and a fair deal for the underdog. The bad guys are called 'neoliberals.' They go round beating people with handbags and making jokes about bombing the Soviet Union. Their aim is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. But there's a problem. Up until now being a social democrat has meant responding to every new social problem with an increase in the size and scope of government (tax and spend). However during the 1980s most left-leaning politicians figured out that was exactly the kind of thing which lost elections. So around the world, left of center governments abandoned Keynsianism, cracked down on welfare and started privatizing. And the he voters liked it. But this success also created a problem. The chattering classes accused their politicians of selling out to neoliberalism.

So this is where Giddens steps in. While the third way worked well in practice, to convince the critics it also needs to work in theory. Giddens sets out to persuade the intellectual left that the third way is sheep in wolf's clothing. Sure on the outside it looks like a toned-down version of Reagan/Thatcher but deep down it's a caring sharing lamb. Social democratic practice is past its use-by date, but there's no need, says Giddens, to identify social democracy with specific policies. Instead, social democratic goals can be expressed through new policies--like making welfare recipients work, getting tough on crime and cutting the bureaucracy. It's all a matter of how you look at it.

In Britain and Europe the term 'social democracy' has become a kind of brand name with some serious brand loyalty. Giddens is fighting to keep that brand for the new product line. It's a bit like Levi Strauss saying "sure they're not jeans... but they ARE Levis and you know how much you like those."

Perhaps the most problematic aspect of Third Way 'talk' (or "Blair-speak" as it is known in Britain) is that it often sounds like a big pile of BS. It exhorts civic virtue, but then appears to be Margaret Thatcher: the sequel. This is because Third Way politics are essentially a refutation of left-right thinking--this is what this book excels at conveying.

Tony Giddens offers a concise, but clear, discussion of what the Third Way is all about, and if a reader approaches the text with a willingness to think outside of the left-right consciousness, then it offers a significant contribution to new thinking about politics. It reconceptualizes politics as the continual reconciliation of the failure of governments and markets. It is, at its simplest, about appreciating that meaningful political thinking requires reflexivity and a willingness to change opinions and policies as circumstances change around us. It is not about selling-out to the capitalists; it is not about tax-and-spend politics. This is a book about solutions.

I can imagine that this book would be decent for people who don't know much about political theory or serve as a reading for intro to political theory classes. However, it serves as nothing more. The book fails to give any concrete evidence to back up his ideas. I guess then this book would constitute a good outline for how he feels social democracy should go, but as one reviewer said, this is not an academic text. I guess if you have some time on your hands and want an intro social democracy and what he feels the future of it is, than read this. If you want facts and detail, don't bother. One more thing, I find it quite scary if it is true that Tony Blair based his policy on this book

In 1956 British Labour MP Tony Crossland wrote about a party "searching for its lost soul." The world was changing so fast that the old doctrines were no longer any guide for the future. Crossland argued that, at its core, socialism was more a set of moral values and aspirations than an unchanging political program.

Like Crossland's The Future of Socialism, Anthony Giddens' The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, is an attempt to reinvent social democracy--to give a political movement back its lost soul.

By 1998 many of the party faithful believed that Labour had sold its soul for victory at the polls. Tony Blair was talking tough on crime, tough on welfare dependency, and tough on government spending. The party had abandoned its old social democratic policies and modeled itself on Clinton's pragmatic New Democrats. Many Labour intellectuals were wondering whether the party had any vision at all other than winning elections.

Meanwhile Giddens, as an academic sociologist, had been questioning the philosophy behind the socialist tradition. With the 1994 publication of Beyond Left and Right he gave a long and subtle account of the exhaustion of the old ideologies and the prospects for the future. With the victory of 'left of center' parties on both sides of the Atlantic under the banner of the 'third way' he saw a chance to popularize his views.

Giddens is philosophical sociologist and works mostly in the realm of abstract ideas. None of his political books have much to offer as accounts of real-life political decision making or practical suggestions for refom. A much better example of that genre would be something like David T. Ellwood's 1988 Poor Support (the blueprint for Clinton's failed welfare reform plan).

If you're after Giddens-Lite -- a non-academic introduction to his vision for social democracy then this is the book to get. It's short, easy to read and relates big ideas to recent political events. If, on the other hand, you want a more serious, academic account then Beyond Left and Right is a better choice.

The Third Way is an influential book but is unlikely to become a classic.

I considered myself more of a traditional Socialist for the last couple of years. Then, one night in September, I was browsing through the History/Social Science section on the second floor of the Connecticut College Library, and I happened across this book. Curious to know more about the "Third Way" so derided by orthodox Socialists and other leftists, I picked it up and began to read. This book was the first factor that caused me to shift my thinking away from the orthodoxy of the old left and toward a modernized vision of Social Democracy for the 21st century. Giddens makes it clear through his analysis of the evolution of the modern economy that Socialism is dead, and that no viable alternative to a market economy exists anymore. He makes a strong case for letting go of orthodox Social Democracy and moving forward to a new system that incorporates the potential of modern education and technology. He also makes it plain that the state is still necessary to promote equality, protect the environment, and mitigate the natural negative effects of the capitalist system. I recommend picking this up and taking a look at Gidden's ideas for moving the world forward to a system that rejects the orthodoxy of both the left and the right, and calls for us to seek out a newer world.

I can't figure out why my previous writing hasn't been posted yet. btw if you expect some decent overview of whole theoretical structure of Giddens's, you should skip this book. this book is mere recapping of Giddens's major titles. sure there are somewhat short assessment on the final chapter. but from my view, it's not fair judgment and worse not insightful at all thou some points are worth reading thou with no supporting. the only merit is the list of all Giddens's work including his journal paper and other's on Giddens

This book is a very simple interview of Giddens. Though he has enjoyed a worldwide reputation as one of the most important contemporary sociologists, his books tend to simplify many practical issues. It is even more serious as to the transcript of an interview. Young learners might find it helpful to read Giddens's thoeries in plain languages and a Q/A fashion. But those who have mid-term understanding can be dissapointed by the shallowness.

In fact, as the Labour Party came into power, the borderline between scholarship and political influence seems to get blurry for Giddens. He is deemed the mentor for Tony Blair, and his doctrines appear to be closer to political slogans. Readers should examine the coherence of his theories, and scrutinize them more carefully.

In this dreadful little potboiler, Anthony Giddens, LSE Director and Blair's favourite guru, ex-Observer editor Will Hutton and ten contributors, including gambler George Soros, tell us to live with global capitalism. To justify this absurd diktat, they put forward some remarkably untenable ideas.

Hutton claims that the USA has more class mobility than Europe. Wrong - Peter Gottschalk and Sheldon Danzinger showed that US workers are less socially mobile than low-paid workers in European countries. Hutton predicts, "the German economy will start to pick up quite smartly." Wrong - unemployment in Germany has now risen to more than four million.

Giddens writes that capitalism is 'fairer than most socialists tended to assume'. Wrong - 86% of Wall Street's gains go to the richest 10% in the US, and US Chief Executive Officers get on average 475 times what their blue-collar workers get. Poverty, he grandly proclaims, is no longer a condition, just the odd brief episode. Wrong - in Britain, three million old people live in poverty, and worldwide, ten million more people now live in poverty than in 1990. He writes, "capitalism has buried the working class." Wrong - worldwide, there are more workers than ever before.

Giddens tells the German government to reform its labour market and welfare system to make it more like the market, because "existing structures of the welfare state are no longer able to deliver". Wrong - it is the market that doesn't work: the average investing household in the USA, forced into stock market gambling to fund their health care, pensions and children's education, has lost $45,000 since the 2000 crash.

They tell us that after the coal-based industrial revolution, then the oil-fired economy, we are now in the third revolution, the third way of the 'knowledge-based', services economy. Wrong - Britain's decline in manufacturing is due to the dominance of finance capital, not to 'a worldwide trend towards a services economy'. Between 1973 and 1992 manufacturing output rose by 25% in Germany, 27% in France, 85% in Italy and 119% in Japan, while in Britain it rose by just 1%.

Blair presses on, trying to impose privatisation through PPP on hospitals, schools, colleges, London Underground, etc., as part of his modernising 'Third Way'. What is this? Peter Mandelson recently gave the game away when he described modernisers like himself as 'all Thatcherites now'. The Blairite pundits Anthony Giddens and Will Hutton claim to be pro-market but anti-Thatcherite.

In this book, they tell us how and why we must live with global capitalism. Hutton claimed that there is more class mobility in the USA than in Europe. Wrong - a study by economists Peter Gottschalk and Sheldon Danzinger showed that US workers had less class mobility than low-paid workers in European countries. Hutton predicted, "the German economy will start to pick up quite smartly." Wrong - unemployment in Germany has now risen over four million.

When the governors of Haringey's schools invited Hutton to put their case against a proposed Private Finance Initiative scheme, he helpfully declared that it was "the closest thing to a free lunch I have seen in 20 years of economic journalism." Wrong - under the scheme, Haringey council was forced to agree to pay the building firm Jarvis an extra £2 million a year for the next 25 years.

Giddens believes that capitalism is 'fairer than most socialists tended to assume'. Wrong - 86% of Wall Street's gains went to the richest 10% of the US population, and US Chief Executive Officers get on average 475 times what their blue-collar workers get. Poverty, he grandly proclaims, is no longer a condition, just the odd brief episode. Wrong - in Britain, three million old people live in poverty. And world-wide, 100 million more people now live in poverty than in 1990. He writes, "capitalism has buried the working class." Wrong - world-wide, there are now more workers than ever before.

He says that the German government will have to reform its labour market and welfare system to make it more like the market, because "existing structures of the welfare state are no longer able to deliver". Wrong - relying on the stock market doesn't work: the average investing household in the USA, forced into gambling to fund their pensions, education for their children and health care, lost $45,000 after the 2000 crash wiped $2.2 billion off the Nasdaq (new technology) stock market.

Hutton and Giddens tell us that after the coal-based industrial revolution, then the oil-fired economy, we are now in the third revolution, the third way of the 'knowledge-based', 'weightless', 'dematerialised' economy. Wrong - Britain's decline in manufacturing is not due to 'a worldwide trend towards a services economy'. When, between 1973 and 1992 manufacturing output in Britain rose by just 1%, it rose by 25% in Germany, 27% in France, 85% in Italy and 119% in Japan. This pure idealism implies that earlier industrial revolutions were powered by ignorant (workers), not clever like 'us' moderns. Tony Blair's favourite guru, Charles Leadbeater, recently wrote a book entitled, Living on thin air. This absurd vision of the future allows no production, no industry, no nation, no economy, no materiality - and this idealist rubbish passes as 'new' wisdom! Workers having to live on thin air - no thanks!