Peter Wagner (Professor of Social and Political Theory, European University Institute University of Trento, Italy)

• Part I Principles of modernity 1 Modes of narrating modernity 2 Enablement and constraint: Understanding modern institutions Part II The first crisis of modernity 3 Restricted liberal modernity: The incomplete elaboration of the modern project 4 Crisis and transformation of modernity: The end of the liberal utopia Part III The closure of modernity 5 Networks of power and barriers to entry: The organization of allocative practices 6 Building iron cages: The organization of authoritative practices 7 Discourses on society: Reorganizing the mode of cognitive representation Part IV The second crisis of modernity 8 Pluralization of practices: The crisis of organized modernity 9 Sociology and contingency: The crisis of the organized mode of representation 10 Modernity and self-identity: Liberation and disembedding  Part V Towards extended liberal modernity? 11 Incoherent practices and postmodern selves: The current condition of modernity

`An outstandingly rigourous and, if simply for this reason alone - much needed, point of reference for the post-modernity/late-modernity debate. ... It is a grand narrative of the indispensable kind whose carefully crafted insights and justifications deserve to be widely and seriously reflected upon, to be challenged or consolidated.' - Publication Unknown 24.2.95`Wagner's historical sociology of modernity makes fascinating and highly illuminating reading.' - Zygmunt Bauman, Times Higher`Closing the book, the reader is wiser than at the moment of opening it, with that kind of wisdom which only a responsible thinker can confer.' - Zygmunt Bauman, Times Higher