Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies by Anthony Giddens ISBN: 0-8047-2214-5 Publisher: Stanford University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)
Rating: 4
Summary: Why marriages turned into "relationships".
Comment: In this excellent overview of the great social experiment known as modern "relationships," Giddens, a leading theorist of political sociology, turns his attention to the world of the personal lives. It is Giddens' thesis that women have been the revolutionaries in a sea change that has occurred within the nature and structure of the family. As women emanicipated themselves from traditional structures of family, they were forced to be pioneers in understanding themselves and their relationships. Using Foucault and Freud as a starting point, Giddens explores the differences between the sexes in the light of modernity, dialectically comparing them with later feminist writers. The contrast allows Giddens to synthesize views into something compatible with his larger view of society in microcosm. Giddens introduces the idea of "pure relationship", a relationship freely entered into for mutual benefit for as long as it is beneficial as a contrast with earlier notions of marriage as role and obligation. He also hypothesizes the eventual replacement of romantic love, as defined by the view (or illusion) that there is a "special someone", with what he calls "confluent love" locating the specialness in the relationship itself. Giddens feels this change is part of a radical "democratization" of society going on at its most micro levels.
Some of this will be "old news" for those familiar with feminist literature, but for most people it will be an integrative look at what most of of have been experiencing without understanding. It may be a little too literate or scholarly for the mass market, but most people will find it interesting, if occasionally difficult. (One does not need to understand Foucault to get anything out of the book, however that particular chapter might be wasted.) There are only two shortcomings: [1] A general tendency to characterize men as the cultural laggards (though probably deservedly) despite a good section on the men's movement. I believe he could have explored more of the contradictions of men's current roles, as done by the more recent book by Susan Faludi- "Stiffed", and [2] a failure to explore what, if any, connection this micro "democratization" has with the increasingly hierarchial and globalized society at large. All in all, though, an excellent work.
 |
Title: Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age by Anthony Giddens ISBN: 0804719446 Publisher: Stanford University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1991 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title: The Consequences of Modernity by Anthony Giddens ISBN: 0804718911 Publisher: Stanford University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1991 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
 |
Title: Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism by Eva Illouz ISBN: 0520205715 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman ISBN: 0385094027 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 01 June, 1959 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
 |
Title: Against Love : A Polemic by LAURA KIPNIS ISBN: 0375421890 Publisher: Pantheon Pub. Date: 26 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
