Although the period of student protests of the 1960s and 1970s has long passed, Alain Touraine argues, in this wide-ranging and vigorous essay, that the period's problems remain with us. Higher degrees have become less and less valuable on the labor market and the demand for academic reform has become more intense. Community colleges still try to provide equal educational opportunities for the poor and the minorities, without much success. And the university has not yet resolved the conflict between being the home of impartial inquiry and research and serving constituent interests.

Touraine views American higher education as a system within a definite, though changing, social context. He compares U.S. student movements with those of other countries. He is skeptical about the way Americans view the relationships between the university and what he regards as the ruling forces of the society, between knowledge and power, between production and education. He offers no facile solutions, but he presents an exciting, nontraditional analysis of the social and political forces that have shaped the modern history of higher education.

In the new introduction, Clark Kerr contrasts his own views as an American observer to those of Touraine as a French intellectual. He asserts that the family, not higher education, is the most important "school" in the process of reproducing society. Kerr places more emphasis than does Touraine on the labor market, on the production functions (training of skills and advancing technology) of the vast nonelite segments of American higher education, on the long-term impacts of science in changing society, and on scholarly criticism in affecting transformations, and places less emphasis on sporadic political protests by faculty and students.

He agrees with Touraine however, in his two great themes: (1) that you cannot understand the academic system unless you first understand society; and (2) that the rise of the university must be understood to understand modern society, where "knowledge is power." This volume will be important to all those interested in higher education, whether as participants or observers.

In this sequel to A Critique of Modernity, Alain Touraine questions the social and cultural content of democracy today. At a time when state power is being increasingly eroded by the economic might of transnational capital, what possible value can we ascribe to a democratic idea that is defined merely as a set of guarantees against the totalitarian

Although the period of student protests of the 1960s and 1970s has long passed, Alain Touraine argues, in this wide-ranging and vigorous essay, that the period's problems remain with us. Higher degrees have become less and less valuable on the labor market and the demand for academic reform has become more intense. Community colleges still try to provide equal educational opportunities for the poor and the minorities, without much success. And the university has not yet resolved the conflict between being the home of impartial inquiry and research and serving constituent interests. Touraine views American higher education as a system within a definite, though changing, social context. He compares U.S. student movements with those of other countries. He is skeptical about the way Americans view the relationships between the university and what he regards as the ruling forces of the society, between knowledge and power, between production and education. He offers no facile solutions, but he presents an exciting, nontraditional analysis of the social and political forces that have shaped the modern history of higher education. In the new introduction, Clark Kerr contrasts his own views as an American observer to those of Touraine as a French intellectual. He asserts that the family, not higher education, is the most important "school" in the process of reproducing society. Kerr places more emphasis than does Touraine on the labor market, on the production functions (training of skills and advancing technology) of the vast nonelite segments of American higher education, on the long-term impacts of science in changing society, and on scholarly criticism in affecting transformations, and places less emphasis on sporadic political protests by faculty and students. He agrees with Touraine however, in his two great themes: (1) that you cannot understand the academic system unless you first understand society; and (2) that the rise of the university must be understood to understand modern society, where "knowledge is power." This volume will be important to all those interested in higher education, whether as participants or observers.

In this book, a leading French social thinker grapples with the gap between the tendency toward globalization of economic relations and mass culture and the increasingly sectarian nature of our social identities as members of ethnic, religious, or national groups. Though at first glance, it might seem as if the answer to the question "Can we live together?" is that we already do live together--watching the same television programs, buying the same clothes, and even using the same language to communicate from one country to another--the author argues that in important ways, we are farther than ever from belonging to the same society or the same culture.
Our small societies are not gradually merging into one vast global society; instead, the simultaneously political, territorial, and cultural entities that we once called societies or countries are breaking up before our eyes in the wake of ethnic, political, and religious conflict. The result is that we live together only to the extent that we make the same gestures and use the same objects--we do not communicate with one another in a meaningful way or govern ourselves together.
What power can now reconcile a transnational economy with the disturbing reality of introverted communities? The author argues against the idea that all we can do is agree on some social rules of mutual tolerance and respect for personal freedom, and forgo the attempt to forge deeper bonds. He argues instead that we can use a focus on the personal life-project--the construction of an active self or "subject"--ultimately to form meaningful social and political institutions.
The book concludes by exploring how social institutions might be retooled to safeguard the development of the personal subject and communication between subjects, and by sketching out what these new social institutions might look like in terms of social relations, politics, and education.

In this book, a leading French social thinker grapples with the gap between the tendency toward globalization of economic relations and mass culture and the increasingly sectarian nature of our social identities as members of ethnic, religious, or national groups. Though at first glance, it might seem as if the answer to the question "Can we live together?" is that we already do live together--watching the same television programs, buying the same clothes, and even using the same language to communicate from one country to another--the author argues that in important ways, we are farther than ever from belonging to the same society or the same culture.
Our small societies are not gradually merging into one vast global society; instead, the simultaneously political, territorial, and cultural entities that we once called societies or countries are breaking up before our eyes in the wake of ethnic, political, and religious conflict. The result is that we live together only to the extent that we make the same gestures and use the same objects--we do not communicate with one another in a meaningful way or govern ourselves together.
What power can now reconcile a transnational economy with the disturbing reality of introverted communities? The author argues against the idea that all we can do is agree on some social rules of mutual tolerance and respect for personal freedom, and forgo the attempt to forge deeper bonds. He argues instead that we can use a focus on the personal life-project--the construction of an active self or "subject"--ultimately to form meaningful social and political institutions.
The book concludes by exploring how social institutions might be retooled to safeguard the development of the personal subject and communication between subjects, and by sketching out what these new social institutions might look like in terms of social relations, politics, and education.

In this sequel to "A Critique of Modernity, " Alain Touraine questions the social and cultural content of democracy today. At a time when state power is being increasingly eroded by the economic might of transnational capital, what possible value can we ascribe to a democratic idea that is defined merely as a set of guarantees against the totalitarian state?If democracy is to survive in the postcommunist world, Touraine argues, it must accomplish two urgent goals: It must somehow protect the power of the nation-state at the same time as it limits that power (for only the state has sufficient means to counterbalance the global corporate wielders of money and information); and it must reconcile social diversity with social unity and individual liberty with integration.This is not merely a philosophical problem but a dilemma whose resolution will dramatically affect the immediate future of people everywhere. If we want a resolution in democracy's favor, then it is time, in Touraine's view, for us to redefine democracy in terms of active intervention rather than mere passive institution. To preserve the power and effectiveness of our states and societies, we must make visible strides--and soon--away from a politics of particularity and toward the integration and balancing of women and minorities, of immigrants, of rich and poor. If our states become too weakened, too debased by the politics of competing identities and interest groups, we will one day find ourselves without the means to protect the very values we believe we are fighting to uphold.

This 1983 book records a fascinating analysis of the Solidarity movement in Poland. Alain Touraine here proposes an understanding of the place of social movements in contemporary society, and a fresh means of analysing them through 'sociological intervention'. In 1981 he and a team of researchers applied these research methods to the Solidarity movements. Groups of Solidarity activists were involved in a discourse over the nature and aims of their political and economic struggle. What emerges is a record of exceptional value in understanding the movement which transformed Polish society, placed firmly in the terms of the Solidarity activists' own understanding of their role, but equally relating this role to a broad analysis of the social structures of eastern Europe. This reflection on forty years of Communist regimes in Europe will appeal to a wide readership interested in Solidarity and Poland.