You are here

The Vertigo of Late Modernity
Share
Share

The Vertigo of Late Modernity

  • Jock Young - John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York and University of Kent


February 2007 | 240 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
'Immersing himself in the whirling uncertainty of late modernity, confronting its odd deformities of essentialism and exclusion, Jock Young has produced a comprehensive account of contemporary trouble, anxiety, and transgression. If this is criminology-and it's surely criminology of the best sort-it is a criminology able to account not just for crime and inequality, but for the cultural and the economic, for the existential and the ontological as well. Perhaps most importantly, it is a criminology designed to discover in these intersecting social dynamics real possibilities for critique, hope, and human transformation. Jock Young's The Vertigo of Late Modernity is a work of sweeping-dare I say, dizzying-intellect and imagination.'

- Professor Jeff Ferrell, Texas Christian University, USA, and University of Kent, UK

'This is precisely what readers would expect from the author of two instant classics: a book that is bound to become the third. As is his habit, Jock Young launches a frontal attack on the 'commonsense' of social studies and its tacit assumptions - as common as they are misleading. Futility of the 'inclusion vs exclusion', 'contented vs insecure', or indeed 'normal vs deviant' oppositions in the globalised and mediatized world is exposed and the subtle yet thorough interpenetration of cultures and porosity of boundaries demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. The newly coined analytical categories, like chaos of rewards and chaos of identity, existential vertigo, bulimic society or conservative vs liberal modes of othering are bound to become an indispensable part of social scientific vernacular - and let's hope that they will, for the sanity and relevance of the social sciences' sake'

- Zygmunt Bauman, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Leeds

'Jock Young is one of the great figures in the history of criminology. In this book he prises open paradoxes of identity in late modernity. We experience an emphasis on individualism in an era when shallow soil forms a foundation for self-development. Young deftly analyses shifts in conditions of work and consumption and the insecurities they engender. This is a perceptive reformulation of job, family and community in late modernity'

- Professor John Braithwaite, Australian National University

The Vertigo of Late Modernity is a seminal new work by Jock Young, author of the bestselling and highly influential book, The Exclusive Society.

In his new work Young describes the sources of late modern vertigo as twofold: insecurities of status and of economic position. He explores the notion of an underclass and its detachment from the class structure. The book engages with the ways in which modern society attempts to explain deviant behaviour - whether it be crime, terrorism or riots - in terms of motivations and desires separate and distinct from those of the 'normal'. Young critiques the process of othering whether of a liberal or conservative variety, and develops a theory of 'vertigo' to characterise a late modern world filled with inequality and division. He points toward a transformative politics which tackle problems of economic injustice and build and cherish a society of genuine diversity.

This major new work engages with some of the most important issues facing society today. The Vertigo of Late Modernity is essential reading for academics and advanced students in the areas of criminology, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology and the social sciences more broadly.

 
Crossing the Borderline
The Disembededness of Everyday Life

 
The Genesis of Othering

 
The Attractions of Hiatus

 
The Vertigo of Late Modernity

 
Turbo-Charged Capitalism

 
 
Blurring the Binary Vision
Bulimia: Not Exclusion But Inclusion/Exclusion

 
Crossing the Borderline: Against the Dual City Thesis

 
The Functional Underclass

 
The Boundaries of Bulimia

 
The Precariousness of Inclusion

 
The Crime and the Narrowing of Differences

 
The Focus Upon the Underclass

 
Globalisation and the Generation of Domestic and Global Discontent

 
 
The Sociology of Vindictiveness and the Criminology of Transgression
Fear of Falling

 
The Change in the Focus of Reward

 
Towards a Criminology of Transgression

 
Humiliation and Rebellion

 
The Satisfactions of Transgression

 
The Humiliation of Exclusion

 
Edgework, Ontological Security and Utopia

 
From Turf War to Real War

 
Hip Hop Across the Borders

 
 
Chaos and the Coordinates of Order
Chaos and Identity in the Twenty First Century

 
The Undermining of the Meritocracy

 
Changes in the Perceived Class Structure

 
The Shift to Identity Politics

 
Antecedents of the Cultural Shift

 
The War Against the Poor

 
The Meta-Humiliation of Poverty

 
 
The Decline of Work and The Invisible Servant
The Declining Centrality of Work?

 
Getting the Poor to Work: The US Experiment

 
Redemption Through Labour

 
Including the Excluded

 
Welfare: From Relief to Irresponsibility

 
Early Morning in Harlem

 
The Invisible Worker

 
The Invisible Servant

 
Entering the Zone of Humiliation

 
Service as a Feudal Relationship

 
The Invisible Poor in a Classless Society

 
Guilt and Middle Class Solipsism

 
 
Social Inclusion and Redemption through Labour
New Labour: New Inclusionism

 
The Welfare State: Not the Solution but the Problem

 
The Will to Win

 
Many's a Slip Twixt Cup and Lip: New Labour's Obsessional Neurosis

 
The Moral Panic Over Teenage Pregnancy

 
Rationality and the Middle Classes

 
From Structure to Agency: Beyond the Weak Thesis

 
Social and Political Exclusion

 
 
Crossing the Border: To These Wet and Windy Shores
The Social Construction of the Immigrant

 
To These Wet and Windy Shores

 
Two Modes of Entry

 
Over Twenty Years Ago: The Riots of 1981

 
Crime and the Demonisation of the Other

 
The Roots of Othering

 
The Final Phase: The Irony of Assimilation

 
The Roots of the Disturbances

 
The Riots in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham

 
Postscript: The Riots in France 2005

 
 
Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism Terrorism: The Banality of Evil
Proxy Wars and the Defeat of the Soviet Union

 
Occidentalism

 
The House of Bush and the House of Saudi

 
The Two Contradictions: Inside and Outside the First World

 
Symmetry and Differences

 
The Beatification of Evil

 
The Logic of the West

 
The Photographs from Abu Grahib

 
Love Was All They Had to Set Against Them

 
The London Bombing and the Banality of Evil

 
The Dialectics of Othering and the Problem of Evil

 
The Generation of Anger and the Frustration of Normality

 
The Othering of the Otherer

 
The Summoning Up of Violence

 
Violence and the Metaphor of War

 
Elsewhere: On the D Train to Manhattan

 
Urban Somnambulism: Elsewhere in a Brooklyn Deli

 
 
The Exclusive Community
The Organic Community

 
Othering in the Ardoyne: The Holy Cross School

 
The Fallacy of Privileging Community

 
Enter Virtual Reality: Elsewhere in the East End

 
Stars, Celebrities: Guiding Narratives for a Shifting World

 
The Cronus Effect and Broken Narratives

 
The Deterritorialisation of Community and the Rise of the Virtual

 
Elsewhere in an Elevator: John Jay College, October 2004

 
The Rise of Multi-Media and the Uninvited Guest

 
From Generalised Other to Generalised Elsewhere

 
From Community to Public Sphere

 
The Community in Late Modern Times

 
 
Conclusion: Roads to Elsewhere
Affirmative and Transformative Inclusion

 
The Politics of Redistribution

 
Towards a New Politics of Inclusion

 
The Politics of Deconstruction

 
Othering and Community

 
The Banishment of Unreason

 
Rationality, the New Media and the Public Sphere

 
The Porous Community

 
Hyperpluralism and the Elusive Other

 
Towards a Politics of Diversity

 

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter One

Chapter Nine


For instructors

Please contact your Academic Consultant to check inspection copy availability for your course.

Select a Purchasing Option

ISBN: 9781412935746
£36.99
ISBN: 9781412935739
£170.00

SAGE Knowledge is the premier social sciences platform for SAGE and CQ Press book, reference and video content.

The platform allows researchers to cross-search and seamlessly access a wide breadth of must-have SAGE book and reference content from one source.