Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim & Ulrich Beck 
Individualization 
Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences

Individualization argues that we are in the midst of a fundamental change in the nature of society and politics. This change hinges around two processes: globalization and individualization. The book demonstrates that individualization is a structural characteristic of highly differentiated societies, and does not imperil social cohesion, but actually makes it possible.



Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim argue that it is vital to distinguish between the neo-liberal idea of the free-market individual and the concept of individualization. The result is the most complete discussion of individualization currently available, showing how individualization relates to basic social rights and also paid employment; and concluding that in as much as basic rights are internalized and everyone wants to or must be economically active, the spiral of individualization destroys the given foundations of social co-existence.

表中的内容

Losing the Traditional

Individualization and ′Precarious Freedoms′

A Life of One′s Own in a Runaway World

Individualization, Globalization and Politics

Beyond Status and Class?

The Ambivalent Social Structure

Poverty and Wealth in a ′Self-Driven Culture′

From `Living for Others′ to ′A Life of One′s Own′

Individualization and Women

On the Way to the Post-Familial Family

From a Community of Need to Elective Affinities

Division of Labour, Self-Imaging and Life Projects

New Conflicts in the Family

Declining Birthrates and the Wish to Have Children

Apparatuses Do Not Care for People

Health and Responsibility in the Age of Genetic Technology

Death of One′s Own, Life of One′s Own

Hopes from Transience

Freedom′s Children

Freedom′s Fathers

Zombie Categories

Interview with Ulrich Beck

关于作者

Ulrich Beck is Professor of Sociology at the University of Munich. He is the author of Counterpoison (1991) and Ecological Enlightenment (1992).