Description: This title was first published in 2001: This multidisciplinary volume addresses perspectives on modernity which identifies modern society as a contingent social and cultural formation rather than as the final stage in mankind's social evolution. It explores this concept both theoretically and empirically, in general and historical terms and through specific social, political and philosophical issues, and represents a unique effort to come to grips with our obscure and elusive social position at the start of the 21st century.
