This book examines the intellectual and cultural life of turn-of-the-century Vienna, one of the most important centers of creativity in Europe.

A Pulitzer Prize Winner and landmark book from one of the truly original scholars of our time: a magnificent revelation of turn-of-the-century Vienna where out of a crisis of political and social disintegration so much of modern art and thought was born. "Not only is it a splendid exploration of several aspects of early modernism in their political context; it is an indicator of how the discipline of intellectual history is currently practiced by its most able and ambitious craftsmen. It is also a moving vindication of historical study itself, in the face of modernism's defiant suggestion that history is obsolete." -- David A. Hollinger, History Book Club Review "Each of [the seven separate studies] can be read separately....Yet they are so artfully designed and integrated that one who reads them in order is impressed by the book's wholeness and the momentum of its argument." -- Gordon A. Craig, The New Republic "A profound work...on one of the most important chapters of modern intellectual history" -- H.R. Trevor-Roper, front page, The New York Times Book Review "Invaluable to the social and political historian...as well as to those more concerned with the arts" -- John Willett, The New York Review of Books "A work of original synthesis and scholarship. Engrossing." -- Newsweek

This book explores social memory in the context of cultural crises of modernity in Thailand and Laos. It explicates the ways in which social memory constructed by the people enters modernity, and how this in turn causes fundamental ruptures with their past, as well as the various ways cultural crises are experienced in their lives. The essays in this book consider how in these crises the people constitute their cultural, social, or individual identities, particularly focusing on the theoretical issues of identifications and their relevance to distinct historical processes in Thailand and Laos. Both countries, particularly in the two decades since the 1970s, have been undergoing radical social and economic changes. Whilst Thailand has travelled down the road to industrialization, neighbouring Laos experienced a communist revolution in 1975 and only since the late 1980s has attempted to follow a reformist path to development. Increasingly influenced by globalised economic and social institutions, both countries have come to face crises that have made people insecure in the present and anxious about the future.

This major study develops a new account of modernity and its relation to the self. Building upon the ideas set out in The Consequences of Modernity, Giddens argues that 'high' or 'late' modernity is a post traditional order characterised by a developed institutional reflexivity. In the current period, the globalising tendencies of modern institutions are accompanied by a transformation of day-to-day social life having profound implications for personal activities. The self becomes a 'reflexive project', sustained through a revisable narrative of self identity. The reflexive project of the self, the author seeks to show, is a form of control or mastery which parallels the overall orientation of modern institutions towards 'colonising the future'. Yet it also helps promote tendencies which place that orientation radically in question - and which provide the substance of a new political agenda for late modernity. In this book Giddens concerns himself with themes he has often been accused of unduly neglecting, including especially the psychology of self and self-identity. The volumes are a decisive step in the development of his thinking, and will be essential reading for students and professionals in the areas of social and political theory, sociology, human geography and social psychology.

This study, from a variety of analytical approaches, examines ways in which contemporary Japanese film presents a critical engagement with Japan's project of modernity to demonstrate the 'crisis' in conceptions of identity. The work discusses gender, the family, travel, the 'everyday' as horror, and ways in which animated films can offer an ideal space in which an ideal conception of identity may emerge and thrive. It presents close, theoretically-informed textual analyses of the thematic issues contemporary Japanese films raise, through a wide range of genres, from comedy, family drama, and animation, to science fiction and horrror by directors such as Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Morita Yoshimitsu, Miike Takashi, Oshii Mamoru, Kon Satoshi, and Miyazaki Hayao, in language that is accessible but precise.

Significant to Dunn's critique of poststructuralist and postmodern theories is his application of George Herbert Mead as a means of theorizing identity and difference. The focus on postmodernity, rather than postmodernism grounds his analysis of identity and difference both materially and socially.