From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society

The second edition of this classic study, revised with a new and substantial opening chapter.

• New edition of a classic study by a leading social theorist
  
• Explores three major ideas crucial to contemporary social theory: the information society, post-Fordism, and post-modernism
  
• Places the three key ideas within the context of contemporary discourse on globalization.

Preface to the Second Edition.

Preface to First Edition..

1 Rethinking Modernity.

2 The Revival of Post-Industrial Theory..

3 The Information Society..

4 Fordism and Post-Fordism..

5 Modernity and Post-Modernity (1): The Idea of the Modern..

6 Modernity and Post-Modernity (2): The Idea of Post-Modernity..

7 Millennial Themes: Endings and Beginnings..

Notes.

References.

Index.

“This superb book, which has been essential reading since its original publication, now includes a major new introductory chapter, covering theories of globalization and multiple modernity’s. Kumar manages to to be judicious and provocative, comprehensive and clear, and magisterial and readable. The book is an indispensable guide to these highly contested yet inescapable attempts to theorize modern societies.” William Outhwaite, University of Sussex

“From Post-Industrial to Post Modern Society has established itself as an incomparable classic of modern sociology. The second edition extends the range of the original text to address new problems of globalism, and thereby integrates the globalization debate into concerns about post-modernity. A singular achievement.” Bryan Turner, Cambrige University.

Krishan Kumar is Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia. Since publishing the first edition of From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society, he has co-edited Public and Private in Thought and Practice (1987) and written 1989: Revolutionary Ideas and Ideals (2001) and The Making of English National Identity (2003). In the second edition of this classic study, Krishan Kumar introduces and assesses the rival claims of three theories crucial to an understanding of contemporary social theory: the information society, post-Fordism, and post-modernism. Explaining how these theories developed and why they have held such an appeal, the author provides the most readable and evenly-balanced account of three very different, but overlapping paradigms. In a new and substantial introduction, Kumar places the three key approaches within the context of contemporary discourse on globalization. From Post Industrial to Post-Modern Society is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand contemporary theories of social, cultural, and economic change.