This volume examines the reasons for intensified social change after 1980; a peaceful process of a magnitude that is historically unprecedented. It examines the kinds of novelty that have come about through morphogenesis and the elements of stability that remain because of morphostasis. It is argued that this pattern cannot be explained simply by ¿acceleration¿. Instead, we must specify the generative mechanism(s) involved that underlie and unify ordinary people¿s experiences of different disjunctions in their lives. The book discusses the umbrella concept of ¿social morphogenesis¿ and the possibility of transition to a ¿Morphogenic Society¿. It examines possible ¿generative mechanisms¿ accounting for the effects of ¿social morphogenesis¿ in transforming previous and much more stable practices. Finally, it seeks to answer the question of what is required in order to justify the claim that Morphogenic society can supersede modernity.

Margaret Archer heads the project at EPFL 'From Modernity to Morphogenesis'. She was elected as the first woman President of the International Sociological Association at the 12th World Congress of Sociology. She is a founder member of both the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences and is a trustee of the Centre for Critical Realism. She studied at the University of London, graduating B.Sc. in 1964 and Ph.D. in 1967 with a thesis on The Educational Aspirations of English Working Class Parents. She was a lecturer at the University of Reading from 1966 to 1973. She is one of the most influential theorists in the critical realist tradition. At the 12th World Congress of Sociology, she was elected as the first woman President of the International Sociological Association, is a founder member of both the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences. She is a Trustee of the Centre for Critical Realism.

Foreword.- Chapter 1. Introduction: 'Stability' or Stabilization' - on which would Morphogenic Society Depend?; Margaret S. Archer.- Chapter 2. A Speeding up of the Rate of Social Change? Power, Technology, Resistance, Globalization and the Good Society; Tony Lawson.- Chapter 3. The Emergent Social Qualities of a 'Morphogenetic' Society: Cultures, Structures, and Forms of Reflexivity; Andrea M. Maccarini.- Chapter 4. Contemporary Mechanisms of Social Change; Douglas V. Porpora.- .- Chapter 5. The Generative Mechanisms Re-Configuring Late Modernity; Margaret S. Archer.- Chapter 6. On the Validity of Describing 'Morphogenic Society' as a System and Justifiability of Thinking about it as a Social Formation; Wolfgang Hofkirchner.- Chapter 7. Morphogenic Society and the Structure of Social Relations; Pierpaolo Donati.- Chapter 8. Morphogenesis Unbound from the Dynamics of Multilevel Networks: A Neo-Structural Perspective; Emmanuel Lazega.- Chapter 9. Morphogenesis and Normativity: Problems the Former Creates for the Latter; Ismael Al-Amoudi.- Chapter 10. Morphogenesis and Cooperation in the International Political System; Colin Wight.