La fin des illusions

Until a few years ago, Western public opinion took social progress for granted. The global triumph of democracy and the market economy seemed inescapable; everywhere, liberalization and emancipation, the knowledge society and diversity of lifestyles seemed to be the order of the day. Recent events such as Brexit or the election of Donald Trump have painfully shown us that these were just illusions. It's only now that we're gauging the scale of the structural change society has undergone. Industrial modernity has given way to a late modernity marked by new polarizations and paradoxes, where progress and malaise rub shoulders.

In a series of essays, Andreas Reckwitz analyzes this transformation in culture, politics, economics, labor and education, drawing on numerous social science studies. His new, lucid theory of modernity follows on from his previous book, The Society of Singularities, translated into 2021, and reveals the main paradigms of the contemporary world: the new class society, the characteristics of a post-industrial economy, the conflict around culture and identity, the exhaustion caused by the imperative of self-realization and the crisis of liberalism.