The Windows In Our House Are Little Doors

I found this very useful to my own understanding of trends and potential in modern times, and I recommend the book for its positive-minded, constructive approach to today's problems. Giddens accepts many of the commonly understand aspects of life today--our reliance of large, abstract systems we don't understand, our risk of losing our individual identities in these systems, the expanded role of the state in our lives, and... Read Full Review

This book is indeed a work of social science, and not a work of formal logic, dialectic, or philosophy. And as such, it seeks to avoid the subject-object aporias and non-explanatory vocabulary of "postmodernism" so fashionable in some academic circles in favor of an integrated model of the self and society that not only makes sense, but resonates with the modern reader and social scientist in a way not easily dismissable... Read Full Review

The question of self identity is a classical philosophical question and also a fundamental issue for any social/ sociological theory which deals with the subject, the active agent. The approach to this issue can be either set out in a philosophical manner or that of a social science. By "social science" I refer to the narrow sense of a somewhat empirical and experimental tradition.Giddens adopts the latter. He argues... Read Full Review