We are spurred into action by our troubles and fears; but all toooften our action fails to address the true causes of our worries.When trying to make sense of our lives, we tend to blame our ownfailings and weaknesses for our discomforts and defeats. And indoing so, we make things worse rather than better. Reasonablebeings that we are, how does this happen and why does it go onhappening?These are the questions addressed in this new book by ZygmuntBauman - one of the most original and perceptive social thinkerswriting today. For Bauman, the task of sociology is not to censoror correct the stories we tell of our lives, but to show that thereare more ways in which our life stories can be told. By bringinginto view the many complex dependencies invisible from the vantagepoint of private experience, sociology can help us to link ourindividual decisions and actions to the deeper causes of ourtroubles and fears - to the ways we live, to the conditions underwhich we act, to the socially drawn limits of our imagination andambition. Sociology can help us to understand the processes thathave shaped the society in which we live today, a society in whichindividualization has become our fate. And sociology can also helpus to see that if our individual but shared anxieties are to beeffectively tackled, they need to be addressed collectively, trueto their social, not individual, nature.The Individualized Society will be of great interest tostudents of sociology, politics and the social sciences andhumanities generally. It will also appeal to a broader range ofreaders who are interested in the changing nature of our social andpolitical life today.

Foreword: Lives Told And Stories Lived.Part One: The Way We Are.Chapter 1. The Rise And Fall Of Labour.Chapter 2: Local Orders, Global Chaos.Chapter 3: Freedom And Security: The Unfinished Story Of ATempestuous Union.Chapter 4: Modernity And Clarity: The Story Of A FailedConquest.Chapter 5: Am I My Brother's Keeper?.Chapter 6. United In Difference.Part Two: The Way We Think.Chapter 7: Critique - Privatized And Disarmed.Chapter 8: Progress: The Same And Different.Chapter 9: On Mass, Individuals, and Peg-Communities.Chapter 10: Education: Under, For And In Spite OfPostmodernity.Chapter 11: Excess: An Obituary.Chapter 12: Faith And Instant Gratification.Part Three: The Way We Act.Chapter 13: Does Love Need A Reason?.Chapter 14: Private Morality, Immoral World.Chapter 15: Democracy On Two Battlefronts.Chapter 16: Violence, Old and New.Chapter 17: On Postmodern Uses Of Sex.Chapter 18: Is There Life After Immortality?