This book presents a wide range of important, lively and engaging readings, aiming to capture the originality of Bauman's special way of doing sociology and all the complexity of his core ideas, in a way that connects with twenty-first century minds.

Tony Blackshaw is Reader at Sheffield Hallam University

Preface
Setting up the encounter
Introduction - Tony Blackshaw
Part I: Thinking sociologically
Introduction - Tony Blackshaw
1. The motive for metaphor - Michael-Hviid Jacobsen
2. Talking sociology - Zygmunt Bauman in conversation with Michael-Hviid Jacobsen and Keith Tester
3. Writing sociology - Zygmunt Bauman
4. This is a "liquid modern" world - Zygmunt Bauman in conversation with Nicholas Gane
Part II: Re-thinking the unit-ideas of sociology
Introduction - Tony Blackshaw
5. Class - Zygmunt Bauman
6. Community - Tony Blackshaw
7. Freedom - Zygmunt Bauman
8. Utopia - Zygmunt Bauman
9. Social inequality - Zygmunt Bauman
10. Bureaucracy - Zygmunt Bauman
11. Culture - Zygmunt Bauman
Part III: Modernity from a 'liquid' perspective
Introduction - Tony Blackshaw
12. Consumerism - Tony Blackshaw
13. Individualization - Zygmunt Bauman
14. Happiness - Zygmunt Bauman
15. Media - Zygmunt Bauman
16. Identity and globalization - Zygmunt Bauman
17. Liquid power - Zygmunt Bauman in conversation with Mark Hauugard
18. Liquid fear - Zygmunt Bauman
19. Liquid surveillance - Slawomir Czapnik
The continuing task: Epilogue
20. 'Liquid modernity' fifteen years after - Zygmunt Bauman