Overview

Anthony Giddens has been one of the most famous and influential sociologists for some time. Largely credited with the concept of the ""Third Way"", he continues to be a key advisor to Tony Blair, and is generally presented as an exponent of liberalism and socialism. This work provides an introduction to Giddens' work, covering the wide range of his writing from theory to self-reflexivity, modernity and politics, placing them all within the framework of a historical context. The text argues that Giddens' writing has always embodied a political and ethical position, one that has changed considerably over the years and is best understood through the social context in which it was written. Giddens' work in the 1970s attempted to marry liberalism and socialism, but, following the collapse of Communism in the 1990 East-European revolutions, his worldview became liberal rather than socialist, and his later work on reflexivity and the ""Third Way"" embodies this. The text explores how this worldview accounts for many tensions and failures in Giddens' theory and that, overall, his work is fundamentally flawed.

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Steven Loyal is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at University College Dublin. He is the author of The Sociology of Anthony Giddens (Pluto Press, 2003).

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