Dariusz Brzeziński is assistant professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences and a visiting research fellow at the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds.Katarzyna Bartoszyńska is assistant professor of English and women's and gender studies at Ithaca College.

"In this first comprehensive and critical assessment of Bauman's lifelong work on culture, Brzeziński includes Bauman's Polish-language papers and books, as well as his works discovered only posthumously, presenting them to an international audience." Polish Sociological Review"Brzezinski has produced a valuable and original text which provides new resources for scholars interested in Bauman's work. It is true to Bauman's overall goal in his sociology which always sought a critical perspective which, in defamiliarizing the familiar, encouraged his readers to think afresh about what is and what could be. … Brzezinski shows how this key trait of Bauman's sociology, expressed in his hyperbolizing texts, can be traced back to his earliest consideration of culture in the 1960s and forward into his final pieces. In doing so, he shows how the Bauman pre-exile should count in our consideration of his sociology." European Journal of Social Theory"Brzeziński skilfully guides the reader through much material not published in English, together with some unpublished and difficult-to-obtain material." European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology"[Brzezinski's] utmost care and seriousness in examining Bauman's work conveys his deep appreciation of what Bauman did for the discipline of sociology and wider society. This is a wonderfully intimate biography, and I thank Brzezinski for helping me better understand Bauman's work and life." Contemporary Sociology"In [Dariusz] Brzezinski's work, the desire to look at the work of … Bauman as a whole, running from his earliest to his latest texts reaches its apotheosis…. As a Polish speaker, Brzezinski can draw upon a selection of texts hitherto unpublished in English … [shining] a light on how little of the Polish work has been translated, with [his] collection of essays beginning to make a dent in this." Thesis 11