The author explores the question of how we might live together in a truly globalized world society. He mounts an attack on the idea that we now live together as equals, sharing the same social and cultural values.

The first part of Touraine's book asserts that the only way to prevent the destruction of identity is for individuals to develop a personal life-project, which he calls the 'Subject'. To become a subject, the individual constructs itself as an actor, forming a stable point of reference in a world of permanent and uncontrollable change. In the second part of the book, Touraine examines how this apparently non-social principle might be used to reconstruct social life. The first step is to recognize that others are also subjects, striving for a sense of personal freedom. Touraine then argues for a replacement of the old idea of democracy, defined as participation in the general will, with the new idea of institutions that safeguard the freedom of the subject and permit communication between subjects. This is the only approach that will allow us to live together, equal and different. This book will be of great interest to second- and third-year undergraduates and graduate students of sociology and politics.

Translator's Note.
Acknowledgements.
Introduction.
Part I: The Production of the Self:
1. Demodernization.
2. The Subject.
3. Social
Movements.
4. Early, Mid- and Late Modernities.
Part II: Living Together:
5. Multi-Cultural Society.
6. The Nation.
7. Democracy in Decline?
8. A School for the Subject.
Conclusion: Ethics and Politics.
References.
Index.