This book is about the sociologists' analyses of the newness of our time. It discusses five conceptual perspectives: (1) Multiple modernities; (2) Globalization; (3) Multiculturalism; (4) The declining accountability of the State; (5) Postmodernity. The divergent propositions which surface give this discourse its basic coherence.

Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Ph.D. (1974) in Sociology, University of Jerusalem, is Weinberg Professor of Sociology at Tel-Aviv University. He has published on ethnicity and language in Israel, and Jewish identities, including Language, Identity and Social Division (Clarendon, 1994) and Ethnicity, Religion and Class in Israel (with S. Sharot, Cambridge University Press, 1991)