The Consequences of Modernity

Anthony GiddensYilin Press2022

Rating 4.0
Word count
96K words
Chapters
35
Series
Humanities and Society Translation Series
ISBN
9787544788465

Tags

Society and Culture Social Sciences Expert SystemHumanitiesMonitoring SystemSocial RelationsSociologyEconomic GrowthCapitalism

Summary

The Consequences of Modernity is a representative theoretical work by the British sociologist Anthony Giddens, originating from the "Raymond Fred West Memorial Lectures" he was invited to deliver at Stanford University. The book seeks to answer a question that seems simple yet is extremely difficult to address: why is modern society different from traditional society? What exactly is the underlying mechanism of this difference? Giddens refuses to see modernity as a natural continuation of tradition, emphasizing instead that it is a "discontinuity." He proposes three driving mechanisms of modernity: the separation of time and space, the development of disembedding mechanisms (social relations lifted out of local contexts and reorganized through symbolic tokens and expert systems), and the reflexive appropriation of knowledge. Consequently, modernity manifests at the institutional level in four dimensions—capitalism, industrialism, surveillance systems, and control over the means of violence—and inherently carries a globalizing tendency. The book also discusses trust and risk: modern people increasingly depend on trust in abstract systems (expert systems), while modernity also generates systemic risks such as totalitarian growth, the collapse of economic growth mechanisms, ecological destruction, nuclear conflict, and large-scale war. Giddens argues that we have not entered "post-modernity" but rather a period of "high modernity" whose consequences are more radical and pervasive, and he explores possible human pathways through "utopian realism." This revised edition has re-examined terminology and phrasing throughout and added explanatory translator's notes, making the Chinese presentation of this classic text more accurate and readable.

Editor's review

一本薄书，却改写了很多人理解“现代社会”的方式。吉登斯没有把现代性讲成一部进步史，而是把它描述为一辆难以驾驭的“主宰之车”：我们坐在车上，知道它有失控的风险，却又下不来。 它的好处在于框架干净。时空分离、脱域、反思性这三条动力机制，配合资本主义、工业主义、监控、暴力控制这四个制度维度，几乎可以套用到你遇到的任何一个现代议题上——从社交媒体上的信任危机，到专家意见为何越来越不被相信，再到全球化与本土主义的拉锯。 刘擎曾把它称为“一部学术史上的里程碑”，并把它列为搭建知识体系的应读书目。修订版经过专家审订，术语更规范，关键注释也补全了，对第一次读吉登斯的中文读者友好不少。 需要提醒的是，这不是一本轻松的入门读物，它更像一张地图：篇幅不长，但每一节都需要停下来想。读完之后，你未必会认同吉登斯的乐观，但大概会再也无法把“现代”当成理所当然。

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Reading tips

  1. 先读第一部分“导言”，把三大动力机制的骨架记住，再往后读制度维度与信任部分。
  2. 读到“脱域”“本体性安全”“反思性”等术语时随手做概念卡片，第二遍读会顺畅很多。
  3. 可配合《社会的构成》《失控的世界》对照阅读，看吉登斯如何在不同著作中推进同一问题。
  4. 每读完一部分，试着用一个当下现象（如算法推荐、疫苗接种争议）检验这套框架。

About the publisher

Yilin Press China · Founded in 1988

Yilin Press focuses mainly on translated foreign literature. Its current catalogue of 318 titles covers common categories such as mystery and detective fiction, foreign literature, world classics, biography, and social novels. Representative books include The Complete Sherlock Holmes 2: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, To the Lighthouse, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, and Lives of the Artists: Michelangelo, often presented in bilingual or English-language editions that serve both original-text reading and language learning. Its author resources include foreign writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and Romain Rolland, as well as translators including Li Jiazhen, Gao Fen, and Ma Ye. The catalogue also includes Chinese works such as Li Jieren's Ripples Across Stagnant Water. The press shows a concentrated publishing strength in foreign classics and bilingual readers; given limited public information, this overview is based only on catalogue data.

Contents

  1. Editor's Preface
  2. Part One Introduction
  3. The Discontinuities of Modernity
  4. Security and Danger, Trust and Risk
  5. Sociology and Modernity
  6. Modernity, Time and Space
  7. Disembedding
  8. Trust
  9. The Reflexivity of Modernity
  10. Modernity or Post-Modernity?
  11. Summary of Part One
  12. Part Two The Institutional Dimensions of Modernity
  13. The Globalization of Modernity
  14. Two Theoretical Perspectives
  15. The Dimensions of Globalization
  16. Part Three Trust and Modernity
  17. Trust in Abstract Systems
  18. Trust and Expertise
  19. Trust and Ontological Security
  20. The Pre-Modern and the Modern
  21. Part Four Abstract Systems and the Transformation of Intimacy
  22. Trust and Personal Relations
  23. Trust and Personal Identity
  24. Risk and Danger in the Modern World
  25. Risk and Ontological Security
  26. Adaptive Reactions
  27. The Phenomenology of Modernity
  28. Deskilling and Reskilling in Everyday Life
  29. Objections to Post-Modernity
  30. Part Five Riding the Juggernaut
  31. Utopian Realism
  32. Future Orientations: The Role of Social Movements
  33. Post-Modernity
  34. Part Six Is Modernity a Western Project?
  35. Concluding Remarks

FAQ

这本书和《现代性与自我认同》是同一本吗？ 不是。本书原名为 The Consequences of Modernity，聚焦现代性的制度维度与全球化；《现代性与自我认同》是另一部著作，更侧重自我与身份在现代晚期的重构。
读这本书需要先读其他社会学著作吗？ 不强制，但若先了解马克思、涂尔干、韦伯关于现代社会的经典论述，会更容易读懂书中“两种理论视角”等章节的对话对象。
1990年原版和2022年修订版差别大吗？ 内容主体一致。2022年修订版重新审订了术语与语句，规范了体例，并增补若干知识性译注，中文阅读体验更好，建议优先选此版。
为什么书里说我们处在“高度现代性”而非“后现代性”？ 吉登斯认为，被贴上“后现代”标签的现象，其实是现代性自身激化的结果：时空分离、脱域与反思性并未消退，反而更彻底，因此宜称为“高度现代性”或“盛期现代性”。
书字数不多，是否适合作为课程教材？ 适合。全书约九万六千字、篇幅紧凑而框架完整，常被用于社会学理论、现代化研究与通识课程的指定阅读或讨论课材料。

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About the author

Anthony Giddens Author · British · 1938

Anthony Giddens (born 1938) is a British sociologist, born in London, known for his structuration theory and his work on modernity. He served as director of the London School of Economics (1997–2003) and was an important intellectual adviser to Blair's "Third Way," participating in public debate. His writing spans social theory, sociological introductions, and critiques of historical materialism; works held here include The Central Problems of Social Theory, Sociology: A Critical Introduction, and A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, and are often classified under social science, Western philosophy, and social culture. He emphasizes conceptual construction and institutional analysis, writing with rigor and practical concern, and has had a profound influence on contemporary sociology and political thought.