Bauman Reader - (Wiley Blackwell Readers) by Peter Beilharz (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The remarkably diverse writings of Zygmunt Bauman range across a large number of issues in sociology, politics, history, and cultural studies. This is the first collection of Bauman's writings that covers the entire breadth of his work, and includes a summarizing essay and commentary by editor Peter Beilharz. As a whole, this is not only a guide to Bauman's way of thinking, but a guide to making sense of our times through the major work of one of the most important figures in late-twentieth-century social thought

From the Back Cover

The remarkably diverse writings of Zygmunt Bauman range across a large number of issues in sociology, politics, history, and cultural studies. This is the first collection of Bauman's writings to cover the entire breadth of his work, and includes a summarizing essay and commentary by editor Peter Beilharz.

Beginning with Bauman's early English-language work on socialism, the Reader proceeds through Legislators and Interpreters to Bauman's defense of a sociology of the postmodern. The editor has also selected essays from Bauman's preeminent works on the Holocaust and on globalization. The book includes a new extensive interview, anticipating some of Bauman's forthcoming work.

Review Quotes

"The Bauman Reader, edited by Beilharz, provides an excellent condensation of the sociologist's remarkably diverse writing in social theory, politics, and philosophy. The Reader scoops up many of Bauman's most significant work on the nature of culture, intellectuals, morality, ethics, modernity, postmodernity, and globalisation." -- Anthony Elliott, The Australian

"This anthology provides the possibility for students of social theory and postmodernity finally to 'get a handle' on the multifaceted, deeply veined work of Zygmunt Bauman. Beilharz makes a real contribution by providing organizational categories for Bauman's diverse writing. Further, his broadly reasoned introduction supplies a biographical, historical, and theoretical framework for making overall sense of what Bauman has been up to during his distinguished and highly original career." Jeffrey Alexander, University of California at Los Angeles

"Zygmunt Bauman is one of the most enterprising minds in the contemporary social sciences. Beilharz's selection provides a full picture of Bauman as an analyst of class, as a moral philosopher, and as a critic of globalization. The image that emerges is one of a European intellectual of the old style who is entirely up to the exigencies of our time." Peter Wagner, European University Institute

About the Author

Peter Beilharz holds a Chair in Sociology at La Trobe University, Australia. In 1980 he co-founded Thesis Eleven, the international journal of social theory. His major books include Labour's Utopias (1992), Postmodern Socialism (1994), Transforming Labor (1994), Imagining the Antipodes (1997), and Zygmunt Bauman: Dialectic of Modernity (2000)