Modernity has been radically changed by globalization, individualization, new inequalities, and fundamentalism. A novel way of analysing contemporary societies is needed. This book proposes such an analysis.

It reviews the history of 'Western' modernity in this light and then focuses on the specific answers that were and are being developed in Europe.

Preface
Chapter 1
Ways of understanding modernity
Part I
Interpretations of political modernity: liberty and its discontents
Overture
Multiple interpretations of political modernity
Chapter 2
Modernity and the question of freedom
Chapter 3
The political forms of modernity
Chapter 4
Modernity as a project of emancipation and the possibility of politics
Part II
Interpretations of economic modernity: the endgame and after
Overture
Capitalism and modernity as social formations and as imaginary significations
Chapter 5
The critique of capitalism and its impasse
Chapter 6
Towards a comparative-historical sociology of capitalism
Chapter 7
The exit from organized economic modernity
Part III
Interpretations of epistemic modernity: distance and involvement
Overture
The quest for knowledge beyond experience and interpretation
Chapter 8
The critique of science and its prospects
Chapter 9
Varieties of socio-political interpretations of modernity
Part IV
The European experience and interpretation of modernity
Overture
European integration as an interpretation of modernity
Chapter 10
Logics of European history
Chapter 11
Regionalizing European modernity
Part V
The analysis of modernity and the need for a new sociology
Overture
When the light of the cultural problems has moved on
Chapter 12
The social theory and political philosophy of modernity
Chapter 13
The conceptual history and historical sociology of modernity
References