This authoritative and revealing book provides the first sociological examination of postmodernism. Lash examines the differences between modernism and postmodernism, providing a clear explanation of why postmodernism is important.

Introduction; Chapter 1 Postmodernism: Towards A Sociological Account; Part One Postmodernism and Social Theory; Chapter 2 Genealogy and the Body: Foucault/Deleuze/Nietzsche; Chapter 3 Postmodernity and Desire; Chapter 4 Communicative Rationality and Desire, Roy Boyne, Scott Lash; Chapter 5 Modernity or Modernism? Weber and Contemporary Social Theory; Part Two Postmodernist Culture; Chapter 6 Critical Theory and Postmodernist Culture: The Eclipse of Aura; Chapter 7 Discourse or Figure? Postmodernism as A 'Regime of Signification'; Part Three Modernism and Postmodernism: Social Correlates; Chapter 8 Modernism and Bourgeois Identity: Paris/Vienna/Berlin; Chapter 9 Modernization and Postmodernization in the Work of Pierre Bourdieu;