The Risk of Compressed Modernity - by Chang Kyung-Sup (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In many Asian societies, the process of modernization often took place in a rapid and highly compressed fashion - not over centuries, as had happened in most Western societies, but in several decades. This enabled Asian societies to achieve high levels of economic growth very quickly, but it also harbored unexpected risks and costs that threatened further development. The very mechanisms and strategies that made their explosive modernization possible tended to produce existentially hazardous consequences in virtually all areas of public and private life, and seemingly insurmountable obstacles to sustained advances in the future.

Focusing on South Korea and other Asian countries, this book presents a critical account of compressed modernity and its key structural risks. These include endemic political crises, distorted industrial governance, widespread labor displacement, worsening intellectual and cultural dependency, rampant environmental and physical hazards, and even abrupt demographic meltdown. However, these risks and contradictions have also stimulated structural reforms and adaptations, opening up the possibility for the kind of radical change that Ulrich Beck described as "the metamorphosis of the world."

Review Quotes

"Chang Kyung-Sup has been, throughout his long-distinguished career, one of South Korea's most influential and sought-after sociologists. While the world's economists marvelled at the speed of South Korea's transformation, Chang uncovered a social world of massive inequality, exploitation, corruption, and authoritarianism in a range of publications that were influenced by Ulrich Beck's notion of 'risk society.' Beck was a realist, but not a pessimist. The same might be said of Chang. In times of crisis, he has always looked for ways to improve the lives of ordinary citizens through his creative sociological imagination."
Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University

"This book not only illuminates South Korea's compressed modernity, but extends Ulrich Beck's cosmopolitan sociology across axes of politics, class, institutions, family, culture, and gender. Chang Kyung-Sup writes for South Koreans and those interested in Beck, but also invites comparisons across East Asia and the world to refigure the catastrophic metamorphosis through which we all live."
Michael D. Kennedy, Brown University

About the Author

Chang Kyung-Sup is SNU Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Seoul National University.