Postmodernization: Change in Advanced Society

Can sociology survive the face of developments resulting from postmodernism? Comprehensive and timely, Postmodernization examines this critical question through these resulting developments in six areas: the collapse of culture into a postcultural cafeteria of packaged ``styles''; the erosion of the state; the fragmentation and multiplication of the familiar class and gender categories of modernity; a decline in allegiance to traditional political parties; the development of flexible manufacturing systems which reprofessionalize labor and reduce the scale of bureaucracies; and a diminishing confidence in the capacity of science to solve human problems which delegitimates it and raises the possibility of its absorption into technology. Academics and students of social theory, cultural studies and urban and political sociology, and those interested in contemporary culture, this is cutting edge material in the world of sociology.